


real cool world

by pulpfanfiction



Series: real cool world [1]
Category: Beauty and the Beast (1991), Rogue One: A Star Wars Story (2016), Sonic the Hedgehog - All Media Types, Thor - All Media Types, X-Men - All Media Types
Genre: And also enjoy, First story!!!, Hope you enjoy, I like to have fun, I take constructive criticism but pls be kind, It'll take a while, It's gonna be l o n g, Like, M/M, Multi, The Author Regrets Nothing, Werewolves! Fuck Yeah, i don't know how to tag, oh man, really long, this was a passion project of mine, uhhh
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-04-08
Updated: 2018-04-08
Packaged: 2019-04-20 02:39:11
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 30,797
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14251290
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/pulpfanfiction/pseuds/pulpfanfiction
Summary: and herein lie the stories of the man who became a beast, of the former rebels and super heroes and of foxes out from their worlds and into ours.and herein lies the story of the boy who can only try to run from fate and of his best friend who will bear witness to the horror of it all.welcome to the real cool world, enjoy your stay.





	real cool world

**_real cool world._ **

 

* * *

 

_“I believe the characters we read on the page become more real than the men who stand beside us”_

 

 

  * __Jackie Kennedy__



 

 

* * *

 

_somewhere in new jersey._

  


Jyn Erso didn't smoke. She wasn't one of those who woke up early to catch a puff before everyone else had awoken, but leaning on her balcony watching the early sun just begin to rise, she looked as if she did. Like a woman with poise and prowess ready to plot her day in which she would change everything, but she wasn't that woman anymore. She just was unlucky enough to have woken up early, and for no reason at all. It was just one of those days. Cassian was still asleep in their bed, although Jyn’s absence had caused him to stir in his sleep (he was most likely moving in his sleep to take up more space on the bed now that she was gone, that bastard). She then decided to dress for the day. She took off her pajama pants and an old shirt and changed into her new skivvies. First her shirt and vest over it, which still had holes from the laser fire of Scarif, and then her dark pants, belted up with her holster still attached. She would have put her boots on, but she realized that she wasn't going anywhere so why would she need them? She debated bringing her blaster, she knew she wouldn't need it, but the thought ran through her head for a second. Force of habit. She held it for a second before she put it back onto her dresser. She had all sorts of little trinkets surrounding her dresser. Cutesy little reminders of home. Little model X-wings and U-wings and Y-wings adorned the area around where she placed her blaster. Lego stormtroopers engaged Lego rebels in a mock battle surrounding a framed picture of her and Cassian and Chirrut and Baze and Bodhi all together at a park. Small books were balanced on little boxy display, where she kept her hair ties and pens and an unopened box of mints that either someone had given her or she had bought for herself. She had a desk in the room, but she never used it. It held a laptop and a lamp and that was about it. Cassian sat on the desk if he used the laptop, Jyn just picked it up and brought it with her wherever she wanted to bring it, but other then that her and Cassian’s room was practically barren. She tiptoed around the bed to avoid waking Cassian, who seemed just too comfortable in his slumber to wake up. She snatched up her phone off its charger and snuck out through the door, gracefully stepping over the mysterious stain in their carpet that neither she nor Cassian could attribute to creating (they think it might have just been there to begin with) and closed it silently. Spinning on her heel, she leaned up against the wall and looked around. Nobody was up, and the only sound that could be heard in the empty halls was the ambient hum of the air conditioner. She began to make her way down the halls when another tenant of the home opened the door of his room to leave, the second Beast of the castle: Hank McCoy. Hank was taller than Jyn and far bulkier and his fur was a shade of blue. He seemed to dwarf the rather almost petite looking Jyn, but Hank was a kind, gentle soul. He saw Jyn and a small grin formed on his face,

 

“Good morning Miss Erso, up early today are we?” Jyn smiled back at him

 

“Good morning Hank.”

 

“Any good reason you happen to be up at-”, he stopped to check his watch for the time, “six-thirty?”

 

“No, no,” she shook her head, “just happened to wake up early that's all.” Hank nodded his head in agreement.

 

“I see, you must be heading down to breakfast then? Would you mind if I headed down with you?” He asked her.

 

“No no,” she told him, “Go right ahead!” And with that the duo set off towards the kitchen. It would be a walk to get down there so Jyn decided to spark a conversation to keep the situation from becoming awkward. “So what are you teaching your kids today?” She asked him. Hank had managed to somehow find himself a job at the local high school teaching chemistry of all things.

 

“Lab day today,” Hank told her, “Days like these make me miss my mutants. God, I can already smell my singed fur and I can hear all the angry mothers calling me asking why their sons came home with burnt fingers,” That elicited a chuckle from Jyn.

 

“Then why do you do it then? There has to be some lesson you can teach instead?” Jyn inquired.

 

“I can't, sadly, I have to have at least one lab day in the week. School policy.” Hank grunted. “I mean they are smart children but good god, they're a rambunctious sort.”

 

“I can't blame them,” Jyn told him. “I mean I was always the inquisitive and rambunctious sort as a child myself. Can't even count the times I nearly destroyed my family's apartment on Coruscant, or the homestead on Lah’mu. Once I nearly blew it up trying to make my mother a meal,” the last bit elicited a little laugh out of Hank.

 

“Must run in the family,” Hank joked, “you almost blow up your home, your father helps nearly blow up the Galaxy,” as Hank laughed, Jyn stopped for a second and looked as if she was about to hold back tears or some sort of anger. “Oh, oh god, oh my god, I'm so sorry, it slipped out, I didn't mean to,” Hank quickly pulled her into a hug. He had forgotten for a second that to him, Galen Erso was just a man who died in a Star Wars movie. To Jyn, Galen Erso was her father and a hero, whose body she wept over on Eadu as he gave his life for the cause of ending the empire’s reign.

 

“It's fine, it's fine,” she said trying to release herself from Hank’s huge arms. “You slip up. We all do. You're only human after all, aren't you? No matter how furry you are.”

 

“I am, I am,” he answered. “But I am truly sorry.”

 

“And you are truly forgiven,” she gave him a hearty pat on the back. “Go get some food Hank.” The two had now arrived at the kitchen. The kitchen itself looked like the sort of “kitchen of the future”. The type of place that looked like if you had gone back to 1955 and asked the people to imagine the kitchen of the 2010s. It had that futuristic aesthetic that was visible in most of the mansion but the aesthetic was most visible in the kitchen. From its mix of long, straight lines in it’s design, large windows, a chrome finish and a counter that shot outwards in a short “L” shape to allow about six people space to sit and eat in an area that wasn't the dining room like the counter of a diner, or a bar but dual sided. It resembled more of a reject from The Jetsons then something that had both form and function, but it managed to somehow work.

 

Hank went to find food for his meal, and Jyn went towards the counter where Bodhi Rook, who had awoken before her, was now just meagerly eating some cereal with milk as he read a book. Sitting across from him was a little yellow fox tinkering with a laptop. His name was Tails. Tails isn't his actual name; it was a nickname on the account of him being born with two tails. His birth name was Miles Prower, but nobody called him that simply because calling him Tails sounded catchier then just saying “Miles”. Bodhi saw Jyn and he just beamed ear to ear. “Jyn!” Bodhi summoned her to sit net to him, but she chose to sit next to Tails, but still across from Bodhi. Jyn greeted Bodhi, but quickly turned her attention to Tails.

 

“Hello there!” she said.  All Tails did to respond was to just nod and return to his work on the laptop. He wasn't trying to be rude, in fact he's usually a happy little fox who's always ready to talk, today he was just trying to concentrate. He did however at least acknowledge her greeting. Jyn didn't mind, so she lightly scratched the top of his head and then behind his ears, as if he was a dog, and she then turned her attention towards Bodhi. “I didn't see you at all last night, Cassian was looking forward to a rematch in that sports game,”

 

Bodhi looked up from his bowl, “Wii sports?”

 

“Yeah,” Jyn nodded. “Where have you been lately? I feel like I've been seeing less and less of you,” Bodhi just swallowed his cereal and then shook his head.

 

“You don’t need to worry about me, Jyn.”

 

“Worried?” Jyn almost seemed insulted by that, “ Who said that I was worried? When did I-”

 

“You don't have to say it, because every time I leave the house it's always “Bodhi where have you been?” “Bodhi where’d you go?” “Bodhi don’t be long,” “Bodhi be careful out there the gangs come out at night”. Jyn it almost stops becoming curiosity and it starts becoming overbearing. You aren’t my mother.” Bodhi stopped to take another bite of his cereal before he took the empty bowl and walked it over to the sink. Jyn just shook her head.

 

“Overbearing?” She turned to Tails “When do I seem overbearing to you?” He didn't say anything. He wasn't even listening, and it certainly wasn't helping Jyn’s case. Jyn just shook her head again in disbelief.  “Overbearing,” she grunted to herself. She couldn’t believe it. Her? Overbearing? That most certainly wasn’t Jyn Erso, not the rebellious soul Jyn Erso. Not the loner Jyn Erso, who cared only for her own survival, who was now smothering her friend Bodhi Rook. Overbearing? Good _god_ no! She would have given the situation more thought, but her train of thought was interrupted by Hank wishing her farewell.

 

“Goodbye, Miss Erso,” he said to her with a wave and a smile, almost not noticing the rest of the small flock with her, he then corrected himself by saying goodbye to the rest of the small group.

 

“You know,” Jyn said as Hank was almost gone from the kitchen, “We _are_ living together. We’ve been living together for a while. There’s no need for formalities anymore,” Despite being halfway through the doorway, Hank turned to hear her speak to him. “Call me Jyn,”  She said.

 

“...Goodbye Jyn,” He said to her. Before he left he made a final request to her: “Tell Logan I said goodbye when you see him,” And with that, he was gone from the kitchen, making his way to the front door to leave. Bodhi had sat back down moments before, and now that he was back Jyn was ready to ask again how she could be so overbearing, but her train of thought was once again interrupted, this time by the arrival of the household's first and original beast: Adam, into the kitchen.

 

He was taller then Hank, that was one of ways to distinguish between the two. He was taller, his fur was a different color: Brown to Hank’s blue. He had horns, Hank didn’t. Hank lacked a tail like Adam. Really the only link between the two was a shared nickname, but it was still confusing to call for a beast the times they would be together in a room because despite how much he despised the name, Adam still responded to it. He still dressed formally, as if he were still a prince; practically overdressed for the day. Compared to say, Bodhi, who was dressed in a simple t-shirt and his pajamas for the day; Adam was dressed in his white shirt (A button down one too at that), a set of black trousers (with a hole cut in the back to allow his tail to escape from) and a cape. The idiot still wore a cape. Immediately Jyn and Bodhi noticed two things about him that morning: he was on the phone, and he was speaking another language entirely. He was saying something they couldn’t comprehend in a language neither knew (Tails knew though: It was French, but nobody asked for his opinion so he stayed silent and continued to tinker with the laptop), so they didn’t bother to ask questions. It was a universal unspoken rule that if someone was saying something in a language that you didn’t know, then the conversation was most likely private and it didn’t concern you. Jyn and Bodhi were rebels, but they knew etiquette.

 

“Adam!” Jyn called. That got his attention. “Come over here! Come sit with us!” Her calls worked and Adam immediately began walking towards them.

 

“ _Nous parlerons plus tard_ , _je promets,”_ he cooed into the receiver of his cell phone “ _au revoir!”_ And with that, the conversation was over. He hung up and sat on the seat next to Bodhi. “Good morning,” he said to each of them, before reaching out to pet Tails. His paw was so massive that it practically encompassed Tails’ head, and it sent the young fox into almost a little panic attack but he immediately calmed when he realized who it was and soon after resumed his work. The four shuffled in their seats, and Jyn went up to get food before Adam spoke again. “Should I turn on the TV?” He gestured to the small television sitting on the edge of the counter by where the little bar area where they were sitting at began. Nobody agreed or disagreed so he reached for the remote on the counter and turned it on. Immediately the newscaster spoke;

 

 _“And in local news: preliminary charges have been filed against the young werewolf charged with the slaughter of-”_ Adam quickly went to the next channel.

 

“Let’s not watch that,” he muttered quietly, The next channel, which was showing a rerun of _Seinfeld_ , seemed like the much nicer candidate.

 

“No,no,no, I wanna hear that,” Bodhi said, gesturing for Adam to give him the remote, But he didn’t give it up. “Come on man I wanna watch that,” he groaned. Adam shook his head and chuckled lightly at mid-nineties Julia Louis-Dreyfuss making a fool of herself on the TV, but he gave in after a minute when he realized he was the only one watching it. He changed the channel back and newscaster spoke again, this time reporting something new:

 

 _“And in Washington DC, the werewolf protesters returned for their third straight day to show their support for the Silver Act, which is set to be voted on today. The controversial legislation, if passed would limit the selling of silver bullets to private citizens, and the amounts sold to police forces,”_ The TV showed several thousand men and women flooding the steps of the Capitol building in protest.

 

“Good morning!” a young woman called as she entered the kitchen. Her arrival turned the group’s head from the TV towards her. This was Mary Warren. She was a short girl, but you could always sense her arrival in a room. She was an exceptionally bright and spunky young woman with a pretty face. She looked almost like your grandmother in all the old pictures you saw of her, with her round face and her long flowy hair. (the adults in her family loved to say that she looked exactly like how Ann-Margret looked back in the sixties when she was young, but Mary never saw it). She had a certain aesthetic to her, like she was trapped in almost some odd mish-mash of the stylings of the fifties and the nineties. She was effortlessly vintage, and showed it off whenever she could, like days such as this. Today she was wearing an old grey frock with a white shirt along with her glasses. She walked towards the counter and immediately noticed the news report on the TV. “What’s going on?” she asked, gesturing at the TV. As Jyn returned to the table with her food, for once, Tails spoke up.

 

“All the werewolves are out protesting at the capitol,” he said “Congress is voting on the silver bullet law today so the werewolves are showing their support,” Everyone was a little awed at the fact that an eight year old fox was a little more informed in the current state of affairs then they were.

 

“How’d you know that?” Jyn asked before taking a bite out of a pop-tart. “You look a little too young to be looking into that kind of subject,”

 

“Actually, a close friend of mine was a werewolf,” Tails replied. A hush then drew over the kitchen. “I mean- we-we never called him a werewolf. We used ‘Werehog’ but not werewolf, never werewolf but..” Tails trailed off for a moment. He was reminiscing on the past, and everyone could tell. He missed his old friends every day that he was here. His eyes looked down towards the floor, and his ears slowly flattened down. He then picked himself back up to finish, “Same concept, I guess… same concept” he sighed. He resumed work on the laptop for a brief minute before speaking again, “And besides, I’m eight, but I’m not stupid. I know what’s going on outside this house.” He silently clicked some coverings on the laptop back together, and handed it to Adam. “Give this to Ben when he comes back from wherever he is,” Mary quickly turned away from the TV to speak to Tails,

 

“You don’t know what happened to Ben?” She asked, as almost if what happened to Ben was a sort of shared knowledge. “It’s been like a week since..”

 

“Week and a half,” Adam corrected. “They took him on the nineteenth. That was Wednesday. Today’s the first, a Monday. Week and a half,” His demeanor suddenly became less cheerful. He didn’t want to think about this now.

 

“...Yeah, But did you really not know what happened?” Mary asked Tails. She was both shocked and confused. In a house full of close to twentysomething people she assumed rumors would surely fly fast and furiously.

 

“I woke up late and I saw Adam crying in his room that night, and when I asked you you didn’t say anything. I just assumed it was a touchy subject so I never asked again after that,” Tails replied. The rest of them began to look back and forth at each other, as if to wordlessly decide on if they wanted to tell the story or not or if the young fox could even begin to comprehend what had occurred that night until Bodhi spoke up.

 

“I,” he stopped to clear his throat, “I also never saw what happened. I was out all night that night and came home pretty late. I mean I got bits and pieces ,but not the full story.” It took a few seconds, but Adam was ready to say what happened. He was opening his mouth to begin when Mary stopped him.

 

“No, you don’t have to tell them.” Mary told him. She put a consoling hand on his shoulder. “You don’t have to…”

 

“They want to know, and they’ll know, I can do this Mary,”

  


_one week and four days prior_

  


Benjamin Jones never thought of himself as a beauty. He was twenty-one years old, and so a patchy little red beard to sprout on his face. He had straight neck length auburn hair, always tied back into a tiny ponytail behind his head and he stood comfortably at an average height of five foot, seven inches. He looked skinny, but never thought of himself as so, he always thought he was pudgy around the middle but certainly seeing other boys his age who had like eight-pack abs and looked as if they survived on about two calories a day didn't help his outlook on himself at all. He had always, to an extent, envy those types of people, no matter how much they bullied him. They were fancy kids whose mothers and fathers could afford to buy them BMWs and catered their asses through college. They were loved by all and admired by all and had pretty girls on their arms and their names mentioned on the school newspapers sharing their incredible exploits in sports. What was Ben Jones compared to them?

 

What Benjamin Jones was is the son of a mother who was Irish, and a father who was Puerto Rican. He was born in Salem, Massachusetts but moved to the small town of West Berlin after about one year due to a shift in his mother’s job.  A heritage like that could hardly be defined as regal, compared to Adam. God, Adam was a prince, no matter how beastly and furry he was (Or I should say is); there was and would forever be royalty in his blood. He never thought that Adam would even glance his way.

 

As of now they’ve been dating for close to a year.

 

The duo had met when Ben had taken a the opportunity to study abroad in Europe. The two had met quite simply; all Ben did was ask what his name was when Adam arrived at the same crepé stand that he had. That was it, simple as that. It didn't take much for the two to bond after that. Adam was depressed that his final memories were of Belle leaving him to save his father, and when he arrived in our time he was without her or his servants. He spent a lonely twenty-first birthday alone as a beast in an abandoned penthouse in a Paris he didn't know anymore and in a time he could hardly begin to fathom. Ben’s prior relationship had imploded in the weeks before the trip and his life after it had begun to spiral out of control in the days before the trip, and during the trip he himself began to fall apart. From that common feeling of loss, they fell in love.

 

It was a lovely night; that's why they went out. The full moon was bright in the night, and a five minute walk from where they all lived was a spectacular view of the city of Berlin, New Jersey, where one could see all the lights of the little city glistening spectacularly in the night. There were no clouds at all up in the night sky and spring had finally sprung after the long winter before, and that meant that that the temperature had finally reached that coveted spot where it was not too cold, not too hot, and that meant that they could spend the night outside without the extra coverings. They would be damned if they chose not to spend such a beautiful night together outside.

 

At one point, Ben asked to stop by a great big oak tree, one of many planted alongside the dirt path they were following.

 

“Hey,” he called to Adam, “your claws still sharp?” Adam was confused.

 

“What?” He responded quizzically.

 

“Did ya trim yer claws yet?” Ben asked.

 

“Oh, oh no I don't think so,” Adam extended his paw to allow Ben to inspect it in the moonlight. His claws were in fact, still sharp. Ben quickly grabbed him by the arm and pulled him towards the great big oak tree on their path.

 

“You got a light?” He asked. Adam only shook his head no. “Your phone?” Adam shook his head no again. “Damn,” he muttered. “I forgot mine so..”he trailed off. An alternative solution then presented itself; all Ben had to do was lead the mighty beast to the side of tree illuminated by the moonlight. He then began to use his claw to make a carving in the trunk of the oak. “Sorry,” he said. “Woulda brought my pocket knife but it was a, ya’ know, a spur of the moment thing.” Adam nodded, and he slowly returned to etching something into the bark of the tree with his boyfriend’s claw. After about a second he turned right back to Adam, “That hurt?” He asked. Adam shook his head, wordlessly saying “no”. Ben nodded back and returned to using his claw to carve. It took him a few seconds but the outline of a heart was now in the oak, two seconds later he had a little “j j + p a” inside. He looked back to Adam to see his judgment of his handiwork. Adam smiled and that was all Ben needed. He started speaking again. “I used to spend weekends with my aunt and uncle when I was young. They lived like, out by Princeton. High end shit. Fancy as fuck ya’ know? And they were close enough that I used to spend time out on the college campus of where they went when they were students. And I swear when we used to go to this park they'd always walk me to a tree and be like ‘oh look Benjamin here's that old tree we carved our names into when we were teens’. Thought it was the dumbest shit ever but, ugh I dunno, kinda grew on me I guess. I kinda wanted to actually do that kinda thing with like a girlfriend or someone once I started dating,” he slightly chuckled and scratched a nonexistent itch on the back of his neck.

 

“Did you?” Adam asked. Ben looked dumbfounded for a second before turning to point at the oak.

 

“We literally just did that,” Ben said pointing back at the carving.

 

“No, no, with your old girlfriend, before me,” Oh. _oh. Lisa._ God thinking about her just made Ben almost irrationally angry. He had to just quickly suppress those feelings for his own sake.

 

“Lisa? Nah man. To be honest I don't even remember that time. I kinda suppressed all that shit. Bad times.”

 

“Oh,” said Adam. “Sorry I forgot that-”

 

“No, no it's fine.” Ben sighed. “Go ahead of me. I'll meet ya over on the overlook.” He gestured over to the little area where the view of the city was. Adam nodded and began to walk over. All Ben could do was sigh looking at the little carving he had left in the tree. What he had said before was a lie. He still remembers Lisa. No matter what happened he would always remember Lisa. And he did do that with her. Somewhere in the backyard of his old house was a tree with “Lisa Adams loves Benjamin Jones” carved into its trunk. He didn't say anything about it because he had absolutely no desire to reopen those old wounds.

 

Adam was patiently waiting by the overlook. He was sitting on a brick wall built to keep people from falling off the tall hill as they were admiring all the bright lights of Berlin. The best part is that it was especially late, which meant that nobody would be around to bother them at all. They could do whatever the hell they wanted.

 

A little blessing of becoming a beast was that Adam’s hearing was greatly improved. When he heard the snarling, he was perturbed, but it wasn't until he heard the yells of pain and the sounds of claws digging into flesh that his heart dropped to his chest and he turned to see whatever that thing was attacking Ben. He dropped to all fours to run down as fast as he could and charge into it. The hit sent the creature flying back into a tree, and Adam heard the crunch of the animal’s shoulder bones being crushed from the force of the hit. He would have ran over to kill the animal. He would have let his animal instincts take hold as he slashed its neck or used his paws to crush it's skull in. That was his new love there lying there half dead on the ground, he had lost Belle, and he'd be dead himself before he lost another. Adam had brought his paw up and he would have brought it down upon the animal’s skull. He was stopped only by a tiny cub bravely leaping onto its wounded mother to protect her. He could see the animal clearly now. It looked like a wolf, but it was taller than any wolf Adam knew. It had backed itself up against the tree with the cub in its arms, and was it wearing some tattered clothing? But he didn't have time to look at it anymore, he turned his back to the animal and immediately set towards Ben, lying almost catatonic on the dirt. The animal picked up it’s cub with its good arm and ran as fast as it could and ran into the night, it had no time to show its thanks for mercy. Adam could swear that from the corner of his eyes, he could see the thing was on its hind legs as it ran off. But there was absolutely no time to watch the animal run away, he had to quickly see how grievous Ben’s wounds were.

 

Moonlight wasn't the best way to see the wounds, but he got the gist of it. Blood had begun to pool over Ben’s right eye, and all over his face he could make out large gashes; all of them oozing blood. A dark wet spot had begun to develop on his chest as well. He wanted to say something. Adam desperately needed to say _something_ , just something, but nothing was coming out of his mouth. All he felt as if he could do was stare at Ben lying bloody and dying out there on the dirt and cover his mouth with his paw in pure shock. Ben was weeping, and all he could manage to do was to croak out was just one “Help me.” And that was it, just those thirty seconds of shock felt like an eternity. Something had to be done. Neither had their phones on them so an immediate 911 call wouldn’t be possible. Nobody else was around, so that ruled out a third party allowing them to use their phone. There was just one solution: run. Take Ben in his arms and run as fast as Adam possibly could.

 

They were five minutes away from home. Adam made it home in two.

 

\---

  


Dateline was on and Cassian had no damn idea why he was watching it. Jyn was watching it, maybe that was why. He enjoyed being able to spend all this time with her now that there was no war to be fought. He decided to just get up to run to the kitchen to rummage for a snack. Everyone else had gone up to bed, but a small party remained in the living room. The living room was this massive modernist looking room, like something that would have came out of Frank Lloyd Wright’s wet dreams. Or maybe it looked like something that came out of the nightmares of communist Germany in the eighties. Nobody could decide. If the kitchen was retrofuturistic, then this was brutalist architecture’s lovechild with it. A massive window with a set of double doors cut into it, as big as the walls that surrounded them either let light into the house, or it at night let it escape. You could clearly see that from the little deck area set up directly outside of it was the backyard, which you walked down a tiny flight of stairs to this massive field of grass that eventually faded into the forest of the preserve and the dirt road that led to the mansion. The way it was was that the path looped from the back of the house to the front, which took you to either the front of the house or to the garage where you could park your car (they had several). The main centerpiece however was the massive pit, and in it a gigantic U-shaped couch which allowed all the peoples of the mansion to cuddle around the huge curved TV to eat their food or to watch something on the TV when they desired not to watch it in their own rooms or the game room that they had.

 

Jyn was wrapped in a blanket, focused on the TV, Mary Warren was sitting with her. She was watching with interest. She spoke, seemingly into the air,

 

“Spooky huh,” it took Jyn a second but she realized she was speaking to her.

 

“What is?”

 

“All this shit, like, It's scary. These people had no fucking clue what they were getting into.”

 

“They walked into it.” Jyn said back. “I’d hate to blame these people, but why would you even speak to these people? Why would you wanna help some weird looking guy late at night put a couch into his car? That's general knowledge!”

 

“We can't all be survivalists, Jyn. God, sometimes people just wanna be helpful and nice. And most of us don't get taught how to live by extremists,” Mary shot back. Jyn just shook her head at her. Cassian had them returned from the kitchen with a small bowl of chips in hand. Jyn made it a priority to summon him over.

 

“So Cassian,” she began to ask. “You see a weird looking man loading a couch into his car late at night. He's got a cast on his arm. He asks you ‘hey buddy help me out here’. What do you do?” Cassian looked in deep thought for a second.

 

“I just walk away. The whole thing is extremely suspicious: Why is he lifting the couch when he has a cast on? Why is he even lifting a couch at night? That's just bizarre,”

 

Jyn didn't need to say anything. She just needed to look back at Mary and smirk. She already won, she needn't do anything else.

 

Young Kitty Pryde was just about to gear up for bed. Her pajamas were on and she had gotten up to stretch and make the long walk from the living room to her room on the house’s second level. She stopped for a minute to listen in on Mary, Jyn and Cassian argue over dateline. She'd usually think something like “god, so stupid,” but in reality when her and her friends were in the same room together there was a huge chance that their conversations would be something like that. She walked up to the great glass windows, and opened up the door that lead to the porch. It was an elevated porch that meant it was high above the grass of the yard. She enjoyed the view outside, the night chill was calming, the breeze gently blew through her hair, the trees off in the distance were eerily beautiful, the figure in the distance running closer and closer was- wait who was that? Kitty descended the stairs down next to the balcony to immediately great who it was running towards the house that night. The former X-Man had no fear and whoever it was she knew she could take them, but as the form grew closer and closer she knew who it was: Adam. He was no threat, but it was what she was carrying that worried her. Was he crying? Oh god he was, and he was yelling; but for what? Oh god she could make out his words now: Help. He was screaming for help. And oh god; he was carrying someone in his arms.

 

“What happened!” She cried, “What happened!”

 

“I don't know!” Adam bellowed through sobs, “I-i-it came out of the w-woods when we were walking together I-I didn't see it even attack him, it came out of nowhere!” Jesus Christ, Kitty realized that it was Ben he had in his arms.

 

“Go!” She commanded, “Get back to the house! Call 9-1-1, I can get Hank he can help until the paramedics arrive!” She tried to quickly take Ben out of his arms and into hers to take the burden off of him, but Adam quickly pulled Ben back towards his chest. He ran so fast into the house he nearly shattered the glass of the doors. Mary immediately stood up to see him and ran to her fallen friend in his arms. She only looked for a second at him, the injuries were too gruesome for her to bear. She immediately felt her eyes begin to well up with tears, she had to turn her back to it.

 

“What happened?” Mary said through gritted teeth. She hated being kept out of the loop when these things happened.

 

“Animal attack,” he spluttered out, before running to place him on the couch. Jyn and Cassian immediately stood and let Ben take their place. The wounds were more terrifying in the light. His entire face was now a shade of crimson as the blood from the facial wounds he had received had spread around his face and his belly. His right eye was ripped open so you could see the red muscle underneath it, but somehow he was still alive, Jyn could tell; she could see his chest rising up and down. It was horrifying. Gashes lined along his arms and legs as well. Cassian was running to the kitchen to grab dishrags, paper towels, anything absorbent to mop the blood from Ben’s face, while Jyn had stayed behind to hold his hand and make sure that nothing could happen to him. She wondered why Adam wasn't doing that himself though. He was being thoroughly interrogated by the worryful Mary, but he wasn't responding at all. His wet eyes were firmly locked on Ben with a thousand yard stare.

 

“Oh my stars and garters,” Hank McCoy gasped as he walked into the living room, “How long has he been like this?”

 

“I,” Adam began to whimper “I-,” Cassian then returned with a few rags in one hand, a first aid kit in the other. Kitty spoke up so Adam didn't have to,

 

“He just got here a few minutes ago, we think it was an animal attack,” Hank quickly went over to Ben, still catatonic on the couch. He pushed down lightly on his neck to feel his pulse. It was light, but still there.

 

“He's still alive, thank god,” This calmed Adam’s sobbing for the moment. “Someone did call the paramedics did they?” He asked. Cassian nodded.

 

“I did,” he said, handing off the rags and the first aid kit to Hank. “They should be here any moment,”

 

“Oh thank god,” Hank sighed. He immediately took the gauze out from the kit and began to wrap up the wounds on Ben's arms first, moving then rip his shirt open to tend to the gash on his chest.

 

What is about to happen was never told to anyone by Adam, but it flashed through his head whenever the story would be told.

 

Mary quickly grabbed Adam by the arm and pulled him. Adam didn't move but Mary’s actions caught his attention. “Come outside. _Now,_ ” she commanded. Once again, she grabbed him by the arm and dragged him towards the porch. She pushed open the double doors and tugged him through them and stood next to Adam. He looked terrible, his eyes were still moist from the stream of tears that had been flowing non-stop, and his once Lily-white shirt was now splattered with stains of bright crimson. She had to take a deep breath before asking him: “What happened?” Adam began to splutter his words again, so Mary just slapped him. It pained her to do so, he was such a good friend and cared so much for her and Ben. Adam did nothing. Had it been someone else they would have caught hell for it, but that was Mary Warren. When Adam growled, she growled louder. “I'm sorry, I am,” she told him, “but that's my closest friend lying there dying. I need to know exactly what the fuck is happening here, and you are going to tell me, _now!”_ Adam sniffled for a second, and then he spoke.

 

“We were walking together. He just had stopped, he carved our names into a tree.” He seemed to pause for a second to pull his strength together to finish the story. “He told me to go on, I and I did.” The waterworks began again. “I could have stopped this, I should have stopped this,”

 

“Don't give me that shit now, Adam,” a grow began to form from the back of Adam’s throat. “God that came out so wrong, sorry. I meant to say that now isn't the fucking time for self pity, I need to know Adam: what the fuck could have done this?” Adam began to shake his head in recollection.

 

“It was big. That's what I saw.”

 

“Big can be a lot of things Adam. We've got a lot of big fucking animals in New Jersey, but the goddamn kicker is they don't live here,”

 

“Could have been a cougar,” Adam suggested

 

“A cougar? A cougar! Jesus fuck Adam, there hasn't been a cougar in years.” She got lost in thought for a second, but then Adam remembered one very, very important detail:

 

“It had clothes,” Oh that got her attention.

 

“ _What?”_

 

“It had some tattered clothes on, I didn't think much of it but-”

 

“The fuck do you mean it wore clothes?!”

 

“I don't know! I only looked at it for a second! I had worse things to-” Mary shushed him. Her eyes were up towards the sky, and at the great full moon shining in the night.

 

“Did it look like a wolf?” She asked, without looking back.

 

“What?” Adam asked. Mary turned back to him.

 

“Whatever the fuck it was, did it look like a wolf?”

 

“Why?”

 

“Adam, it's the full moon tonight.” It took him a few seconds to realize.

 

“No,” he could only shake his head. “No, no, no,”  

 

“Adam, just listen--”

 

“No! No I won't listen! You're telling he's one of those, those _things!” Werewolf_. That was the dirty little word nobody wanted to say. “I can't just-”  

 

“Wow. This is absolutely precious coming from the likes of you,” Adam wiped away his tears and glared at Mary.

 

“And what is that supposed to mean?”

 

“You know damn well what it's supposed to mean, Adam. Here I was thinking that you would be the most understanding of this situation,”

 

“I understand, but,” he stopped for a second and sat down on the deck and pushed his legs towards his chest and rested his head on his knees. Mary sat down to be on his level. “I, I won't bear to see him like me. You can't begin to fathom what becoming something like me does to a person. You're his friend. You've heard what he's told you, and you've seen what happened to the poor kid. I watch the news, and I know what people do when they're terrified of something that they can't comprehend.” Mary reached over to reassuringly wrap an arm around his shoulder.

 

“It's gonna be fine,” she assured. They could both now see the flashing red and blue lights of the paramedics traveling down the dirt road as it came closer and closer to the house. “I have a cousin who works with these types of things, I know she’ll at least be able to help,” Adam just nodded. “Hey, chin up. He's gonna survive this and so are you.” Mary got up and opened the door to leave the porch. The paramedics had made it inside, and were now wheeling Ben away on a gurney. Mary took a deep breath and began to walk inside, but she noticed that Adam was still curled up on the porch. “Go to bed,” She told him. “Go upstairs and wash off. Get some sleep. Just relax. It'll all be fine.”

 

Ten minutes later the two watched the ambulance carrying Ben ride off into the distance.

 

“I’m sorry about slapping you,” she said. She turned around and Adam was gone.

 

\---

 

It wasn't coming off. No matter how hard he dabbed on or scrubbed his paws were still stained with blood. God, he was crying louder and harder than before. _Just keep scrubbing_ . _Just press harder. It'll come out just scrub._ That was all he could tell himself. All he could think through the tears: _just press and scrub_. He then stopped. There was nothing else he felt he could do but grip the sides of the sink and bawl his eyes out. But something was there with him, he could see it in his peripheral vision. His head quickly whipped towards the thing, but as it turns out it wasn't a thing. It was just little Tails. Little Tails, why was he up?

 

“What?” He asked, “why are you up? You should be in bed.”

 

“I heard you crying and I just wanted to see if you were alright,” the young fox then noticed the blood all over his shirt. He took a few steps back in fear. “Oh, oh, I-I'm sorry.” He then quickly scurried away and out of the room. The faucet was still on, so Adam took the opportunity to splash the cool water on his face to wash his tears away.

 

It certainly helped.

 

\---

 

“The hell do you mean he won't let us in?!” Adam roared.

 

Ben’s mother, Aileen, was a nurse, and she happened to work at the exact hospital that he was transported to after the attack. The hospital let her take time away from her normal duties to take care of her son and she was standing vigilant, blocking Adam and Mary, making sure nothing else could happen to him.

 

“I'm sorry,” she told him, “it's a miracle he somehow woke up as early as he did but, he made a request that nobody be allowed to see him in here, it's what he-” No, something had to be done. He pushed Ben’s mother away from the door and first tried to jiggle open the door. Locked. He tried an alternative solution. He banged on the door with his fist.

 

“Ben? Ben?” He asked. “Please, just, can you let me in?” He waited a second.

 

“Adam?” the voice was faint, but it got his attention. Ben was awake, and that was all that matters.

 

“Hey,” he said. “It's me, it’s Adam.” Silence for just a second until:

 

“Hey big guy,” Ben replied. Mary was sighing a relieved sigh. Adam once again jiggled the door handle, it was still locked. He was going to speak but Mary quickly shushed him and pushed him aside.

 

“Ben? Hey, it's Mary, me and Adam heard you were finally up! We’re all worried about you man. Adam got you a bouquet of flowers, and I got a card, you know one of those massive cards, it even plays the Star Wars theme when you open it, and everyone signed it, even Logan and Laura! So just...can you please let us in, we’re all dying to see you...” There was silence.

 

“Just give them to my mother.” Ben said. “I..I don’t want to see you,” Mary looked back to Adam and the heartbreak in his eyes was too much to bear.

 

“Oh..ok, we can come back tomorrow! I'll see if Jyn wants to come, or I'll get like Bodhi maybe? Maybe even Kitty, or Laura! I know you like Laura-”

 

“No, I don't need to see anyone. Just go home.” This left Mary stunned.

 

“I told you,” his mother said. “Just leave him, he’ll call you two if he wants you.” Adam was going to do something, but Mary quickly pulled him away.

 

“Thank you, Aileen,” she handed the card and the flowers to her. “Tell us if he wants anything or if he changes his mind.”

 

“I will,” she nodded. Aileen looked down on the flowers, poppies, and chuckled. This caught Adam’s attention.

 

“What are you laughing at?” He asked.

 

“I thought you'd get him roses,”

 

“He told me a while ago that he liked poppies. Goodbye, Mrs. Jones.”

 

“Goodbye, Adam.” Mary waved goodbye to Aileen and walked off with Adam.

 

“He’s done this before. If we just leave him he’ll be fine. During his stay at Cherry Hill he did this too, never let anyone talk to him, not even his mother. We just let him be and after two weeks and he was fine.” Mary told him.

 

“So he's just going to abandon us then?” Adam asked.

 

“He won't, he’ll just crawl out of this when they discharge him. I've known Ben for most of my life, he bounces back. He always does.”

 

There was a chill in the air; a stunned silence that nobody dared to break. Nobody wanted to. Adam’s cheerful demeanor had fallen into a sullen one, and nobody seemed to know almost how to comfort him. They could place their hands on his shoulder or back, and tell him that it would be alright and give him a hug, but he had been greeted with that too many times prior.  Mary put a hand on his shoulder,

 

“We need to speak,” she walked over to a corner of the kitchen where nobody could hear them. Adam placed the laptop that Tails had given him down on the counter. Jyn watched them both leave, and as they were out of earshot she leaned over to speak to Bodhi.

 

“They all say it was a coyote,” she whispered.

 

“That I know,” Bodhi told her.

 

“But do you _believe_ it?”

 

“Believe it? What's there not to believe?”

 

“I've been reading around, there are no coyotes here, why would one suddenly arrive now? Especially when the people running this preserve take such care to make sure that nothing even steps on our lawn so they can make this place a part of their damn preserve!” Tails was shaking his head behind her.

 

“We shouldn't be talking like this, it's not right,” he said. “The guy is still in the hospital, we could show him a little respect,”

 

“We’re not making fun of him, we’re just...speculating..” Jyn told him. Tails shook his head again and got off the seat. The then little fox set off for the living room.

 

\---

“You feed the Koi yet?” Mary asked, referring to the little Koi pond out in front of the house.

 

“I fed them first thing this morning.” Adam replied.

 

“Good, I'm going to need you to intercept the mail for me, I've got a package coming in and it's kinda important,” Mary told Adam.

 

“Can do, can do, but can't you do this yourself?” Adam asked. Mary shook her head.

 

“I'll be leaving in a few, I'll be gone for a while. Naomi is flying in today I'll have to pick her up.”

 

“So, isn't the airport is about thirty minutes away?”

 

“She's not coming in from Newark, she's coming in from JFK, and her flight comes in at twelve-”

 

“It’s seven, Mary.”

 

“Yeah and if I go later I'll catch traffic, now it'll be bearable, plus parking, plus getting through the city, and I wanted to take a little personal time down in NYC; speaking of mind if I take the Mustang?”

 

“You can't take the Lotus?”

 

“I wanted to show off a little bit,”

 

“You can show off in a Lotus,”

 

“Come on, it's May. It's convertible weather,” Adam was in thought for a second.

 

“Take the blue one, red one’s Ben’s and I don't want to see it damaged before he gets home,”

 

“Oh please that was just one time, and it was a dent,”

 

“A little bigger than a dent is how I remember it,”

 

“Well you remembered it wrong then.” She grunted. “Please Adam, you know I won't wreck it, c’mon,” Adam sighed before reaching into his pocket and dangling a set of keys in front of her.

 

“Not a scratch, you'll catch hell from the two of us,” he lightly tossed the keys to her.

 

“Oh you know you're the absolute greatest right?” Mary asked as she pulled him into a big hug.

 

“Yeah, yeah, yeah,” he said, “Get any new news on Ben?”

 

“No, I called Aileen again last night. She said he's fine and just resting. Should be out soon, tomorrow hopefully. He enjoyed the new flowers greatly,” If Adam were human you would be able to see that he would have blushed profusely, but that was all hidden under his fur now.

 

“And what have _they_ been saying?”

 

“No, Adam, you don't wanna hear that shit-”

 

“Just tell me, Mary,” Mary just shook her head before she spoke.

 

“Same shit. That picture of Ben in the ambulance has been circling like mad, I can't even begin to comprehend why because it's absolutely despicable. Ben's out there fucking _dying_ and some sap takes a picture to make a quick buck off of it like it's no big deal. Fucking bloodsuckers. And now they've got the absolute balls to go after me!”

 

“You never told me they were going after you now!” Adam exclaimed,

 

“Yeah they are, remember when we went to lunch like a few days ago?”

 

“Yes.”

 

“Well guess what, the fucking tabloids thought it was a fucking date. They're now promoting some horseshit story that you abused him and tried to get him out of the way for us to date. And they fucking dug up my family history! They found out I'm partially ethnically Jewish and they're having a fucking field day with it! They're printing all this nasty shit about me now!”

 

“They're tabloids Mary, of course it'll be some sensationalist story-”

 

“But Adam, this is borderline libel! And it's practically anti-semitism! All these crude caricatures of me, and this, oh man I've been meaning to show you this. Yesterday I got this in the mail, some sick fucker thought it would be funny,” she pulled a small booklet out of her pocket and passed it onto Adam. The cover had a crudely drawn photo of Adam on it. He slowly flipped through it to look at it's contents. It was porn. Crudely drawn porn. One of those little Tijuana bibles. It’s opening image was Ben wearing Belle’s yellow dress, with Adam’s hand reaching up his thigh with some stupid beastiality pun as the title, and it got progressively worse and worse. Soon it wasn't just Adam but there was Hank too, apparently raping who looked to be Laura Kinney as he high-fived Adam, doing the same to Ben as Belle wept in the background. And soon it began to involve Jyn and Kitty, and even Tails, for fucks sake he was eight years old, the sick fuckers couldn't keep him out of this? The final image was Adam bedding Mary as a bleeding Ben in the background asked “You couldn't wait ‘till I was in the ground yet?”

 

It was disgusting. Adam absolutely wanted to vomit after flipping through this.

 

“Oh good god,” he exclaimed. “Why is it us!? Why now!?”

 

“Please, you're a fucking Disney Prince and you're the only one who didn't stick by their princess, it's like if Princess Diana crawled out of the tunnel and boned the next chick she saw,” Adam just shook his head in disbelief. “People can be cruel, Adam. They’ll do whatever they can for a quick buck, or to laugh at the unfortunate,” Mary checked the time on her phone. “I gotta go,” she said to him. “I'll be back in a while, don't forget my mail,”

 

“Yeah, yeah,” he muttered. Mary saw his dismay and gave him a hug.

 

“Don't let that shit get to you, whoever made that probably has the sense of humor of a twelve year old. I'm willing to bet a twelve year old probably made that stupid thing.” And she was gone. She walked out of the kitchen and into the garage and she was gone. Adam was alone in his corner of the kitchen, still holding the book. He flipped it open again to a panel which had him carting a nude Ben over his shoulders as a naked Belle wept and asked “was I not good enough?” To which the cartoon Adam responded with “you're old news! I'm the new, politically correct Beast, and I've got a new boy-toy now!”

 

He ripped up the booklet and made sure it made it to the trash can.

 

\---

 

“You’re burning it.”

 

“And how would you know?”

 

“I lost my sense of sight Baze, not my smell” Baze and Chirrut, former guardians of the whills, now making breakfast.

 

“You’re still burning it, Baze,”

 

“I am-” the omelette was totally burnt on one side. Baze just sighed.

 

“Were you about to say ‘I am burning it Chirrut, I will make sure to listen to you much more often, and not burn my omelettes’?” _Chirrut you little asshole_ , Baze thought to himself. He tossed the burnt thing away into the trash.

 

“I'll make us some waffles,” he grunted.

 

\---

It was weird, Jyn was the only other person, besides Baze that Chirrut seemed to easily find. Jyn suspects that it seemed to be her necklace. Pure Kyber. Chirrut could find it like a bloodhound. She was walking away when she felt Chirrut’s staff tap against her ankle. She greeted him warmly and lead him and Baze to where Bodhi was sitting in the living room. He was sitting peacefully watching the news. The old gang was together again (partially, Cassian was still sleeping). Bodhi turned off the news to greet his friends, and soon they all began to make small talk:

 

“So I heard that the new guy is moving in today,” Bodhi said.

 

“New guy?” Asked Baze.

 

“Yeah, new guy. He called a while ago about residency, Adam had the big announcement that we should make him feel welcome and because he's a little more celebrity than most of us that we need to keep a better eye out for photographers, you didn't see all of that?”

 

“I didn't,” Chirrut said with a giggle. If he could see, he would see Baze glaring at him, and Bodhi and Jyn looking at each other to decide if laughing at that would be disrespectful or not.

 

“You don't remember Baze?” Jyn asked.

 

“No,”

 

“Oh. Well I heard from Adam that he should be arriving today, or maybe tomorrow, I don't know,” Baze nodded his head, and so did Bodhi. There was an awkward silence. Bodhi had to break it. “I heard he's taking the cop’s old room,"

 

“The cop?” Baze asked.

 

“Jill whateverhernamewas” Bodhi replied.

 

“I think it started with a ‘V’” Chirrut commented.

 

“Valentine,” Jyn said, almost out of nowhere. “Jill Valentine, yeah that's what it was,”

 

“So you knew her? Like actually knew her, not just saw her here?” Bodhi asked her. She had to think for a second to get her words right.

 

“...To an extent, we spoke sometimes, but she spent most of her time with her bodyguard and-”

 

“She had a bodyguard?” Bodhi interrupted

 

“No, she had a friend here who moved out before her who was a bodyguard, sorry I worded that wrong, what was I saying before?... Oh yes, we were friends for about a second before she moved out,” Bodhi was shaking his head in recollection, he knew who she was now. He didn't remember her friend, but to be honest; none of them did. They were close to each other, but not anyone else. It was strange how they only chose to bond with themselves instead of choosing to make friends with everyone else, but they were gone now. No need to cry over spilt milk.

 

“I never figured out where they went when they left,” Baze said. “I heard stories about that bodyguard man, sounded like the type of guy I'd like,” Chirrut whacked Baze’s ankle with his staff, “as a friend, as a friend,” Baze had to reassure.

 

“I think he’s doing something in New York now. I overheard Ben speaking about it sometime ago, I think he said private security,” Jyn told them.

 

“Private security?” Both Bodhi and Baze at the same time.

 

“Yeah, he's a private bodyguard now. Maybe that's what you should consider doing, Baze,” This elicited a chuckle from him.

 

“No, no.” He told her, “My place is here, with him,” Baze lightly wrapped an arm around Chirrut’s shoulder and the two laughed together. And then a realization dawned on them: none of them worked. They were all jobless. “You should do something Jyn. Get a job, work for a living.”

 

“Like how you do?” She asked, sarcastically.

 

“I don't need to work,” He responded, seriously.

 

“Neither do I, as long as we still get royalties,” Bodhi chimed in.

 

“Which we all most likely will keep getting,” Jyn said. It was good to be in this world now. Once the corporations finally realized that these people were finally real, and absolutely beyond their control, and very angry that their lives were used without their consent, deals had to be struck, and now every formally fictional character would receive a royalty, just as if a natural born real life human being would.

 

“That we will,” Chirrut said. Silence from the group again for a minute.

 

“We never hang out anymore.” Jyn observed.

 

“What do you call this then?” Bodhi asked.

 

“No no, like actually hanging out. We never go out as a group anymore,”

 

“So, why don't we?”

 

“We should, but you're out almost every other night!”

 

“Not my fault I'm actually making friends,”

 

“You can still spend time with us,” she chided. Bodhi only rolled his eyes.

 

“You don't have to be like that, Jyn. He can go wherever he wants,” Chirrut was now chiding her.

 

“Fine, fine,” she said. “Thursday then. How about we all get together on Thursday then. Bodhi can do whatever he damn well pleases.”

 

“I can do Thursday,” he said.

 

“Good. I'll tell Cassian when he wakes up then,”

 

“You should,”

 

\---

 

Was it nine o'clock already? Holy crap it was. Nine o’three now. Cassian Andor slept late, again. This was becoming a habit to wake up to an empty bed; but Jyn wasn't leaving out of spite, he knew that. She obviously was planning to do a little more than he did now, which was nothing. There was no war to fight, no rebellion to support, no spies to intercept or plans to steal. For once in his life Cassian Andor could sleep all day and party all night and there would be no reprisal. No commanding officer could chastise him, Mon Mothma couldn't strip him of rank, there would be nobody to tell him he can't. He was going to grab this bull by the horns and take every opportunity he could to just have a normal life that he was so robbed of, just this once. Just this once, spend the day doing nothing and watching TV and playing on the Wii and talking to Jyn and Bodhi and Baze and Chirrut and Adam and whoever would just say “hello” to him. Life was sweet, finally.

 

The first thing he did was change from his old pajamas into a bright new set of clothes; A new set of jeans and a flashy new t-shirt to begin the day. He brushed his teeth, then his hair, trimmed some stray, bushy facial hair, washed off his face and finally he was ready to start his day. He stepped over the mysterious stain that neither him or Jyn could claim as theirs and he was out the door. The air was filled with the hum of people and it was electric and alive because everyone was up. The day was officially beginning. He smiled and began his walk down to the hallway when he heard another door close. About ten feet behind him, Laura Kinney was just about to fully wake up. She stretched out her body, unleashed her claws with a “snikt, snikt” to stretch them out before allowing them to return to her knuckles. The former Wolverine was an adult now, and was simply just trying to adjust. Cassian waved hello, but she didn't notice. Cassian called her name, she still didn't notice. Cassian called her name again, and that got her attention. She just waved hello back and started to walk past him, so Cassian decided to catch up.

 

“Good morning!” He told her. She nodded. “What are you thinking of doing today?” He asked.

 

“Why? Are you going to ask me out?” She asked him.

 

“No, no. Just curious,”

 

“Mmhmm. Sure.”

“Just trying to be friendly,”

 

“Ok,”

 

And the conversation was over as soon as it started.

 

\---

 

Did she pass out in the game room again? Shit she did. _Betsy,_ she thought to herself. _You gotta stop with this shit_ , _you're better than this._

 

Elizabeth “Betsy” Braddock, the mutant formerly known as Psylocke wasn't better than that, and she knew it.

 

What she was however, was the reigning queen of the _Marvel vs Capcom 2_ cabinet that rested in a corner of the room.

 

The game room was quaint when it was unoccupied, when people piled into it however you most likely wouldn't be able to hear yourself think. They had a large television on one end of the room with several gaming systems hooked up to it, a couch across from it to allow people to sit and play (or watch a movie, it doubled as a home theater), a _Marvel Vs Capcom 2_ cabinet rested on the left wall, and on the back wall: a bar. It was stocked with a mixture of soft drinks and alcoholic beverages for a little bit of extra fun on game nights.

 

Betsy patted down her shirt and combed through her hair with her fingers in an attempt to look somewhat presentable (she didn’t). She heard something, a man breathing, liquid being poured into a glass. There was one man who would be doing something like that this early in the morning.

 

“Good morning Logan,” she said without looking.

 

“Mornin’ Braddock,” he said, also without looking. Betsy fixed a few stray hairs and turned to face the scruffy looking pouring himself a drink in the bar behind the couch.

 

“Isn't it too early for whiskey?”

 

“Never, you want one?” He offered the bottle to her.

 

“No thank you, I can't regrow livers at will, unlike you, so I just have to take care of the one I have now,”

 

“Suit yourself,” he pulled the bottle back towards him.

 

“But,” she interrupted, “I can maybe spare just one drink,” Logan grinned and as Betsy walked towards the bar and took a seat, he set out a second glass for her. He was about to pour for himself, but he stopped short and poured for her first,

 

“Ladies first,”

 

“Ah,” she chided, “who said that chivalry is dead?” The sarcasm in her voice was lethal.

 

“Yeah, yeah yeah,” Logan poured himself a drink next, “just drink,” The two ceremonially clinked their glasses together before taking a sip.

 

“Your daughter is taking after you, I heard she broke up a couple of fights in the city last night when she was out drinking,” Betsy told him. “Or started. I don’t know anymore,”

 

“Yeah,”

 

“You must be proud then?”

 

“Always,”

 

“That's good to hear, nice to see you respect her decisions,”

 

“She's her own girl, Braddock, she can make stupid choices on her own time, I know I won't be able to stop her, and I certainly know she can make it on her own,”

 

“Good to hear, but do you trust the other girls that much, ‘cause I heard that Kitty caused a little commotion at the mall a few days ago,”

 

“They ain't my kids, I ain't their damn father,”

 

“They certainly look up to you like one,”

 

“Their mistake, not mine,” Logan poured a second glass for himself, he offered the bottle to Betsy but she refused.

 

“So you aren't worried that they'll hurt themselves?”

 

“No, I trust them enough,”

 

“Like you trust Laura?”

 

“And what are you implying?”

 

“Just that you actually somewhat care about a certain few people who aren't your own progeny,”

 

“Look, Braddock, I wanted a drink, not a damn game of twenty questions,” in the brief silence Logan downed his second drink, and poured out a third.

 

“Well that's just too damn bad,”

 

“Braddock, what’ll it get for you to shut up?” Logan downed his third drink instantly.

 

“An admittance that you actually care for others,”

 

“And will that shut your trap?”

 

“Absolutely,”

 

“Then consider me caring,”

 

“Good to hear, I had a bet with Rogue going,”

 

“So that's why you're suddenly so interested in my daughter?”

 

“Oh absolutely, I can't wait to rub it in her face that _I_ got the Wolverine to admit that he actually cares for other people,”

 

“Well if it means cheating Rogue outta ten bucks I’ll be down with it,”

 

“That is cruel, Logan,”

 

“And when were you the type of woman to complain ‘bout being too cruel?”

 

“Oh touche,”

 

“Hey Bets,” he asked after a few seconds, “you free Wednesday?”

 

“What are you doing Wednesday?”

 

“Going out to drink, was thinking of dragging you along,”

 

“And who else is joining us?”

 

“Probably it'll be just us. That Rook kid might come along,”

 

“Him?”

 

“Yeah, asked me a while ago. Said he wanted to go out and make new friends,”

 

“Make new friends? I think he's looking for something a little more than friends if you ask me,”

 

“And if you ask me he isn't my type,”

 

“So you have a type of guy then?”

 

“Yeah, I do,”

 

“Uh-huh,” Betsy was unsure for a second, Was he joking? “Are you….?

 

“Call it a coming out,”

 

“Oh wow, it's just…”

 

“What? You got a problem with that?”

 

“No, not at all, it's just…”

 

“What?”

 

“Logan Howlett, the pinnacle of pure masculinity, all rough-and-tumble, you're pure muscle and you're not afraid to kill a man. You're the man every straight man would kill to be, and you're telling me you're gay?”

 

“You say it like it's a bad thing,”

 

“No, I say it like it's the most ironic thing. So all of that with Jean then? Every other woman in your life? Was it false?”

 

“No,”

 

“So you loved them?”

 

“I did,”

 

“But you…”

 

“I like women too,”

 

“Oh. So you're,”

 

“Bisexual, yeah,”

 

“Oh, answers a lot then,”

 

“That it does,”

 

There was silence.

 

“Have you done it with other men?” Betsy asked.

 

“Several,” Logan replied.

 

“...Who?” Betsy was now really curious to see who on any of the X-Teams Logan could have had a secret tryst with.

 

“....Why would I tell you?”

 

“I'm curious,”

 

“And I don't need you of all folks poking around in my sex life, Braddock. You're psychic ain't ya? Can't you just poke around and find the info yourself if you're so interested on the subject?”

 

“I could, but where's the fun in that?” She asked. Logan began to walk away and out of the room. “Logan,” she called. “Just please tell me it wasn't Scott,” she said jokingly.

 

“Oh good lord, not Scott,” Betsy breathed a sigh of relief. Scott and Logan, god no they could never be a good couple. “Later Braddock,” he waved goodbye and left the room. He stopped in the hallway outside the room.

 

Maybe this was the whiskey, maybe it was that Betsy could, and probably would find out on her own.

 

“Hey Braddock,” he walked back into the room to see Betsy.

 

“Yeah,”

 

“Next time ya see Warpath, ask him about me,”

 

“Oh really?” Betsy wondered: Was he admitting this one?

 

“Yeah. Big, bulky Native American guy, but lemme tell ya something,”

 

“What?”

 

“He likes getting his hair pulled,” he said to her with a wink.

 

“Ha! Here I was assuming it would be Kurt you'd admit to,”

 

“No, no. He's a different story,”

 

\---

 

Mary’s phone rang, again. So she hung up, again. It was a strange number, she wasn't gonna pick up for a stranger. Probably a telemarketer. She wasn't doing anything even. Bumper to bumper traffic today on the way to JFK. It was absolutely mind numbing and she had been in it for what felt like hours.

 

It rang, again. Same strange number. Probably a very persistent telemarketer.

 

Again, holy shit who was this person? She angrily picked up her phone,

 

“Listen who the-”

 

“Don't hang up, listen I know this is a strange number but nobody bothered to bring me my damn phone so I had to bug my mother to lend me some money to use a pay phone in the hospital for fuck’s sake,” Oh she knew that voice.

 

“Ben?” She asked

 

“Hey Mary,” It _was_ him!

 

“Ben? Holy shit Ben! Dude you don't know how good it is to hear you speak again,”

 

“Yeah, I know,”

 

“When are you coming back? We're all worried, Adam is just worried sick!”

 

“That's what I kinda called about,”

 

“No way! You're out!”

 

“Yep, they discharged me this morning. My stitches are in and I get them out in a week,”

 

“Shit! Fuck yeah!” She exclaimed in pure joy.

 

“I just need someone to pick me up, I was hoping you’d be available?”

 

“Ah shit, no can do man, can't you just call Adam?”

 

“Aw shucks, I was gonna try to surprise him actually,”

 

“Well I can't help, I'm on my way to JFK,”

 

“The airport?”

 

“No, I'm driving to see the man himself, of course I'm going to the damn airport!”

 

“Why?”

 

“Guess who's flying in? Naomi,”

 

“Naomi! Holy shit really? Your cousin Naomi?”

 

“How many other Naomis do you know, Ben? How many Naomis do I know?”

 

“Oh shut up!” He was in a good mood, she could hear it in his voice. Oh that made her feel so good inside, to think he was half dead when she last saw him.

 

“Call Jyn,” she told him. “She can come get you, I don't think she's doing anything today.”

 

“Thanks Mary, what time will you be home?”

 

“Way later, Naomi doesn't get in until twelve, and I tried to leave early to avoid traffic, spend a lil time in the city ya’ know? But get this bullshit: Back to back traffic. All the way down the highway,”

 

“Shit,”

 

“Yeah, I'm fucking stuck,”

 

“Well, I'll catch you when I get home then?”

 

“I will, bye Ben,”

 

“Bye Mary,” she hung up.

 

The cars seemed to finally begin to move and she drove the car forwards.

 

She passed up the cause of the stoppage: a van burning along the side of the highway. She felt the heat through the open top of the car.

 

She didn't know what to think about it.

 

\---

 

“Do you think he’s gonna look different?”

 

“Of course he’s going to look different! Thing freakin’ tore up his face of course he's gonna be looking different after this!”

 

Why the hell did Jyn bring Kitty Pryde of all people. Why not Cassian? Or maybe Bodhi? Why did they have to be hanging out together? Why did Bodhi have to insist that he was having fun with Cassian? Why did Kitty have to insist to come cause she was “boo-red” and why couldn't she stay with her own friends? She should have made at least Bodhi come with her, because it's nice spending time with him. Not in a romantic sort but Bodhi was just a sweet person to spend time with in a friendly sort of way.

 

She hated this damn hospital, or just hospitals in general, actually no: it was this hospital. It was like a massive labyrinth where sickness and death was in every corner and neither of them knew where they fuck they were going.

 

“You know where to go, Kitty?” She asked.

 

“Nope, no clue,” Oh she was no fucking help at all was she?

 

“Then just stop and ask someone, they'll have to know the way around,”

 

“Ugh,” she spun around but she swore no nurses or doctors were there to speak to her. A redheaded nurse stepped out from around the corner and stepped to Jyn.

 

“Are you Ben’s friends?” She asked. Who was she? How did she know who they were?

 

“Uh-huh,” Jyn answered.

 

“I should have known, he told me you were coming to pick him up, and I recognized you from the movie. Saw it in theaters when it came out. I cried. I thought it was awfully brave what you did,”

 

“Thank you,” This wasn't a new complement. Everyone who recognized her on the street told her how brave she was, and how selfless she was, and how truly amazing she was.

 

Only her though.

 

Never to Cassian or Bodhi or Baze and Chirrut. They were recognized, but never received admirations of bravery.

 

Only her.

 

“And you are?” She asked

 

“I'm his mother,” The nurse responded. Jyn nodded in response. “This way,” She took Kitty with her and they were led down a very long hallway and finally, to a little open room. “Ben!” His mother called, and she waited a few seconds. They could hear the sound of a sink turning off and footsteps towards them.

 

He almost scared Jyn, and Kitty jumped a little when she saw him.

 

The first thing they noticed was how absolutely terrifying he looked. Stitches covered almost his entire right side of his face. One set above his eyebrow, one on his cheek, one along the side of his neck, one that began from where his eyebrows met, twisting down the bridge of his nose to the left side of his face, one on his top lip, about 3 sets under his jaw, and under his shirt was about at least six or so more around his body. And then there was the eyepatch. His right eye was entirely covered with an eyepatch over it. He looked like a damn pirate.

 

“Hey guys!” He exclaimed. He was certainly looking….alive….yeah that was a way to put it. He looked like Ben Jones...Somewhat. He had all of his old clothes: a t-shirt with the logo of the Nintendo 64 on it, still had his old jeans held onto his waist with one of those pseudo belts which you tightened around your waist by just pulling, still had those red, white, and blue converse that he just had to have at the mall because they were the last pair in his size and he loved the faded american flag pattern on them, still had that fiery red auburn hair that always stood out on him. He still had his trademark ponytail around the back of his hair. It was still him, that was absolutely true. The man standing before them was Benjamin “Ben” Jones, age twenty one, born on April 8th. Born in Massachusetts, moved to New Jersey. It was him, but the thing was, it felt off and there was one reason why. It was his face. It just looked wrong, Ben didn’t look like himself, he was borderline unrecognizable. The massive amounts of stitches, the patch. This wasn’t Ben; This was an actor playing Ben in a biopic about his life. It didn’t look right.

 

Kitty tried to open her mouth to say something, but no words were coming out. “Great to see you guys again,” Ben told them. Jyn absolutely had to say something to break their silence.

 

“Nice to see you too,” she turned to Kitty and wordlessly suggested she say something too, so she did.

 

“Oh, It’s nice to see you as well, Ben,” Ben just smiled at the two and went to a table next to his bed to collect some greeting cards sent to him to wish him well during his stay at the hospital and a metal tin.

 

“Ok,” he told the two, “Let’s go,” Everyone got a little chuckle at Ben walking directly into the doorframe as he left.

 

It took them until they had gotten into the car and were halfway home to pop the burning question on their minds, and Kitty was the one to ask it:

 

“What’s happening with your eye?”

 

“Kitty, don’t…” Jyn told her. She wasn’t interested in any awkward confrontations in the car as she was driving

 

”It’s fine,” he had to reassure, “I don’t mind speaking about it. It isn’t gone, if you were wondering. My eye is still intact. But I did wind up losing sight in it. I got my cornea ripped open, and then right after it healed I developed this huge cataract, and when they tried to operate on it… Well one thing led to another and complications arose that I still can’t comprehend… So I lost sight in it. They gave me the patch so my ‘dead eye’ doesn’t scare anyone. I don’t mind, although I lost my depth perception,”

 

“Dead eye?” Asked Jyn,

 

“Yeah, dead eye. Well, it isn't exactly dead, it's just my bad eye. I chose to call it my dead eye cause it's got like, no use at all,” Ben said.

 

“That’s gotta suck,” Kitty said.

 

“Yeah,” Ben replied, “It’s something, I’ll tell ya that. I walk into everything now because my vision is off, I lost my peripheral vision so now it feels just so awkward not knowing what’s to my right without looking, I can’t watch anything in 3D anymore, and I can’t use the 3D on my 3DS anymore, but I don’t really count that as a loss too much.”

 

“Can I see it?” asked Kitty.

 

“See what?” Ben asked.

 

“The dead eye,” Ben was silent for a second

 

“...When we get home,”

 

\---

The mail had finally arrived, and as per request: Adam was there to intercept it. There was a ton of envelopes, and one small box wrapped in brown paper. When he got inside the house, he went to the living room to sit and count it. Tails followed him anxiously, and when Adam sat down, he excitedly ran off with the brown box. He didn’t think much of it, must have just been his package; the kid was always ordering parts or tools or something. Now what did he have to sort through today? It looked to be: Royalties, royalties, royalties, a couple of actual legit letters, royalties, royalties. Slow day today he guessed. He shuffled them all off onto a nearby table and walked onto the deck. It was May, and the April prior was weirdly hot. Nobody knew why, chalk it up to global warming. The temperature was cool in the early morning, and now it had hit a solid eighty degrees at about eleven-thirty that day. Adam had changed from his normal wear to something a little more loose fitting: a snugly t-shirt and a loose pair of shorts, so that if he spent time outside he wouldn't immediately die from a heat stroke. Having fur didn't help either.

 

The deck had a hammock, and today was a beautiful day, no clouds in sight, just a bright blue sky that stretched on endlessly towards the horizon, so Adam thought to himself _why not?_ He got up from the couch and he lightly laid down on the hammock, so to not immediately destroy it by placing all of his weight on it at once. It creaked a little bit, but the rope held up and the metal didn't bend, so Adam took it as ok, so he positioned his head as to not rip the hammock with his horns and he took his phone from his pocket and quickly summoned some calming piano music from it to play, it helped ease him to sleep. He took off his shirt, so that it wouldn't be all soaked in sweat when he woke back up, and he finally closed his eyes. It was calming, his worries seemed to melt away in the heat like ice as he was calmly sunbathing. Nothing else seemed to matter, he felt like he was floating on air.

 

“Hey...hey,” a young voice seemed to be poking at him. Tails.  “Hey Adam...I kinda took this from the mail...I thought it was parts but….it's not...it was Mary’s, I saw it on the label but I kinda ripped it open partially before I did, I’m sorry...” Great, way to go Adam, Mary asks for one thing and you failed at it. He didn't open his eyes but he did growl a little and turn his back to Tails in annoyance.

 

“Just put it in my room,” he groaned, “it'll be fine, I won't tell Mary,”

 

“Oh thank you,” Tails sighed, “I'm so sorry I'll try not to let it happen again,” Adam could hear his little footsteps walk away from him. Good. Now that he was alone again, he could relax. The music was still playing on his phone, he had chosen _Clair de Lune_ from Claude Debussy’s _Suite Bergamasque_. It was this soft piano suite written in the 1890’s; Adam never would get the chance to hear it live if he had still been in his world, so he appreciated it a little more now. This time period has its pros, and it has its cons, but deep deep down, past the pain of heartbreak and loss of the only woman who showed him any sort of love and respect, he did like it here, and deeper down, part of him never wished to return.

 

He missed Belle, that was an absolute certainty. And why wouldn't he? A friendship like that can't just be disposed of like garbage or like chopped liver? Why would he not yearn to see a close friend again? The first person to show true love and compassion towards him, for once in his beastly life, no, why would he abandon her? She was so beautiful, a pure bright shining light in a terrible world that once feared him, now all they did was speak behind his back. “Easy to remember, but harder to move on”. That was the song, right? But that time was done and the song was over. She was in paris, he wasn't. He had someone else now, oh “someone else” the term felt so harsh.  Ben was a living breathing person, not an afterthought.

 

God, poor kid, to the extent of his knowledge he was still in that hospital, all hooked up to machines with the nurses following his every move. He had read recently that one could test for Lycanthropy through blood, God were the tests administered to him? Did they know? Would word get out? Suddenly everyone could know that the great big Disney prince who “abandoned” his woman for a man was now dating a werewolf. The beast was fucking a dog now. He wondered if Eric ever got the same shittalk behind his back and in the tabloids for his choice of who he loved.  And it was just funny to think of the term “fishfucker” being used. “Fishfucker,” maybe he'd try to find a way to use it more.

 

Oh Benjamin, sweet Benjamin. All his thoughts would drift to would be his love lying there alone in that bed, all alone. Why was he like this? Why did he say no? He should have been there, every day he should have been helping him get up and tend to his scars and lightly and playfully kissing his wounds to help him “feel better”. God that last part was so childish but it got him every time Ben did it. Oh he was remembering things now.

 

They were roughhousing, playfully wrestling on the grass outside during a warm day. It was just like today, a blue sky extending out to forever, no clouds, just a cool breeze. Adam had done something stupid, and it had ended with Ben on his back with the wind knocked out of him. And of course, Adam was worried.

 

“Are you alright?” He had asked.

 

“Yeah, yeah,” Ben had grunted. He lifted up his elbow and it revealed a bright red cut, and immediately Adam lifted it to inspect it. “It's fine, just a lil thing, don't worry,”

 

“No,” Adam told him, “oh, I'm so sorry, I'll take you back to the house,”

 

“God, it's fine,” Ben stood up and had to once again reassure Adam, but he spoke again, “actually, it's a pretty deep gash,” it wasn't, it was no worse than a bad papercut or skimming your knee when you fall, “god it might need to be amputated from the elbow...unless,” Adam was glaring at him now, “maybe if you kiss it it will fweel better,” he said with the cutesiest puppy dog face he could muster as a bearded twenty-one year old. He was being a goof, and he chuckled soon after he said it. Adam got a little giggle out of it. Adam picked his arm up and kissed the cut on his elbow lightly. “Hmm...I don't think that cuts it,” Ben wrapped his arms around Adam’s fuzzy shoulders, “try a lil’ higher,” Adam kissed his right cheek lightly in compliance, “Lil’ bit to the left,” he said, in an almost whisper like tone.

 

Adam was happy to comply.

 

He was such a sweet kid (he was twenty one though, the term was used lightly), he felt so blessed to have him in his life. It was a dirty little secret he had, and a sad little intrusive thought that he felt that Belle just couldn't have stayed with him had he stayed like he was now. He knew absolutely it wasn't true, it was just an intrusive thought. Like how when you see a small animal, your first thought when you see it is “oh it's so cute,” but then just somewhere in the back of your head, it isn't immediate, but you hear it, a little voice thinking “what if you just snapped its neck? You easily could,” and you know within your heart that it's wrong, and you know that you won't snap the cute animal’s neck because it's wrong and the animal is just so cute and it's just not morally right to you, but you still imagine it, even if you don't act on it. That was an intrusive thought.

 

It was just a thought that beckoned in the back of his head since he first met her: “will she stay if you don't change?” Even though every day she had proven to him that it wasn't true, and that she would stay with him no matter what, that thought was there. And now he was stuck like this, no going back at all; until his dying days he would be stuck as the massive, hulking, furry beast. Hardly desirable anymore. And now when the “B” word was tossed about like if it was nothing, could a person withstand that stress? And here comes that thought again. God, she could learn to love a beast, but who else could've? Who would stay with the Beast when there was no turning back? No “I love you” and suddenly he was human again, this shit was permanent.

 

He was glad that at least Ben was there to appreciate it. Just the simple fact of him staying with him in Paris during his time there was enough, but just the love he had been given warmed his heart. He wouldn't lie and say he wasn't disheartened when he didn't turn back to a human when they first admitted their feelings to each other. To be fair, he knew he would stay like this from the day he arrived, but just a small part of him wanted to be human again, just so the looks could stop, so people wouldn't take pictures behind his back or so they wouldn't irk him twenty times a day with “hey where’s belle?” As he walked down the street for a coffee. He dreaded being recognizable, he wasn't like the other princes where you'd most likely have to look twice to recognize them, you knew who Adam was as soon as you saw him. And it was bothering him. He was once so afraid that people would hunt him down to kill him and hang his pelt from their walls or that they'd see him and scream in terror, now his fear was that people would hunt him to take his picture, or that they'd never leave him alone. Had he stayed human maybe he'd invite it in a little more, when he was a prince he enjoyed being pampered by servants and the loving admiration of the women he knew, human him would adore that everyone loved to snap his picture and speak to him. But he wasn't human. All this beast wanted was privacy.

 

Ben, Ben, Ben, he'd go off on these tangents, but his mind snapped back to Ben. Ben Jones, the light of his life. A pure, bright shining light in this world that- wait didn't he just call Belle that? Oh he did. Huh.

 

Wait.

 

Was Ben just a male Belle?

 

No, no. He wouldn't do that. And why was that bad? Why? And there was no similarities? Ben was a redhead, and he certainly didn't read too….oh no he did, he read infrequently but at his own pace and when he wanted to, he didn't digest them like Belle did. And he always enjoyed dancing….and he did certainly value a personal freedom too….wait was he?

 

Someone was poking his chest. They wanted him awake.

 

“Hey fuzzy. Furball. Gedup,” he knew that voice.

 

“What is it Baze?” he groaned.

 

“Someone's at the door,”

 

“And you can't get it?”

 

“They're asking for you,”

 

“And who is it,”

 

“I dunno,” Baze told him. Adam groaned again and got up. He shut his music off and wiped the sweat off his brow. “Could be your boyfriend,” he suggested as he walked away. Boom. That switched something on immediately. He immediately ran to the door without thinking as fast as he could. He quickly inspected himself, for one he was without his shirt, but there was no going back for it now, actually maybe Ben would appreciate seeing him for the first time in a week and a half sans shirt. He wiped sweat away and flattened down some loose fur to make himself seem much more presentable then he was before. He took a deep breath, sucked in his gut and when he opened up the door it….wasn't Ben.

 

Just the new guy. Another former superhero, god there were so many of those people here. Big guy, pretty long blond hair, short khakis, sleeveless grey shirt to clearly show off his massive biceps (show off). Something was strapped around his back, looked to be a hammer. Announced himself as a former god, what a prestigious sounding ass. But he wasn't lying. Thor Odinson, guy really was a god back from where he was.

 

“Greetings!” He exclaimed cheerfully, picking up a suitcase he laid down on the ground for a second, “Are you Adam? I'm Thor, I called a while ago about tenancy? This is the place?” He asked. Adam nodded.

 

“I am, and it is,”

 

“Can I come in?”

 

“You can,” Adam nodded. Thor nodded right back at him and stepped through the doorway. He immediately began to admire the house. “You want me to show you around?”

 

“Absolutely,” Thor told him. They walked over to the kitchen,

 

“This is the kitchen,” Adam introduced, “it's a big place, we got a lot of people, so unless you're willing to share, which we usually do: mark down what's yours. We keep the alcohol down in the game room with the bar. I'll show you that later,”

 

“You all share food?” Thor asked.

 

“We do. I provide the big stuff when me and my boyfriend go shopping. Milk, eggs, lettuce, the usual. You want something special, you usually buy it yourself. Logan buys his own beers, Kitty buys herself kosher meat, but don't take that as a command. I can guarantee that I don't bite anymore, so don't be shy to ask for anything if you need it,”

 

“Why don't you just buy things for them then?”

 

“It's what they want to do. I offer, they say “no”. Guess they just don't wanna be babied about everything.”

 

“Understandable,” Adam led him out from the kitchen and out to the den.

 

“This is our den, we have a TV, we have couches, a few tables spread about. To the left is the dining room, we hardly use it except for special occasions. Mostly birthdays. When reporters come over to ask us about anything, we usually sit them in there. Sometimes family comes over and we eat there,”

 

“Whose families?” Thor asked, only because he knew that people like him, their families never arrived.

 

“My boyfriend's sometimes. I'm lucky, his family was very accepting of us. They love me as if I were their own,”

 

“That's nice to hear my good man! Too much do I hear about the suffering of others for the simple choice of whom they love,”

 

“Oh no, not that, people are very reasonable about that now, I stopped worrying about that a long, long time ago,”

 

“So why are you thankful that they have accepted you then?”

 

“...It's the fur, and the horns, just the, well the look. People think it's...well you know….”

 

“Say no more, I know what you mean,”

 

“Thank you,” Adam could see that some people were resting on the couch, so he walked Thor over to make introductions.

 

“This is Bodhi, and his friend Cassian,” Cassian and Bodhi each smiled and shook his hand, Bodhi was taken aback a little by how firm his handshake was, but he just smiled and shook it anyways, “this is Thor,”

 

“Ah thought I knew that voice!” A woman called Anna Marie, the woman formerly known as Rogue emerged holding a snack in one hand.

 

“Rogue!” He boomed, “the pleasure it is to see a friendly face again!” He pulled her into a big bear hug.

 

“Good tah see ya too, big guy,”

 

“So you two know each other?” Adam asked.

 

“We do,” Rogue told him, “served on the Unity Squad together, right?”

 

“Absolutely,” he beamed.  Rouge pulled him into a big bear hug

 

“What happened to ya, Thor? Haven't seen ya in awhile” She asked,

 

“Long story,” he said. Rogue smiled. Adam didn't wanna break up their friendly conversation, but he lightly tapped Thor’s shoulder to wordlessly say “hey let's go”. He got the message.

 

“I look forward to speaking to you again!”

 

“Ah, you too,” she sat back down on the couch. Thor nodded. Adam then led him outside to the deck. “This is the deck. Not a lot to say here. It's a deck, you relax outside on it,” he pointed to a small covered area, somewhat separate from the house, “that's the pool, we were going to have it totally changed, but we kept it covered because we decided to just have a little bit of privacy. We have an issue with paparazzi and fanboys, they like to sneak onto the grounds to try to find us, especially the former X-men. We have a few of the women here and especially with Betsy Braddock and Kitty Pryde, so we've had a couple of issues, we realized a situation like this would be beneficial, for privacy,” Thor nodded, he didn't need to say anything, “great to see you understand, the pool should be opening soon if you desire to go swimming,” Adam led him out of the deck and past the den. He walked over to a wall where a door stood, he opened it up and and down a tiny flight of stairs there was two doors on either side of the hallway. “To The left is the study, plenty of books in there if you want to read. There's a fireplace and a record player in there, if you so desire to use them. Right is the game room. Everyone should be in there now, I swear, it's more of a living room then the living room,” He opened up the door and immediately was greeted by a crowd chanting “BRAD-DOK, BRAD-DOK, BRAD-DOK,” Betsy was back at it again at the _Marvel vs Capcom 2,_ and she was winning. “Playing with yourself again, Elizabeth?” He joked, this was because when she played, she always picked herself to play as. She was up against young Jubilee, who was failing miserably as Ken Masters. Betsy said nothing, she just flipped him the bird and continued to play.

 

“C’mon! Use your damn combos!” Betsy scolded. Boom. Final hit, K.O, Betsy wins again. All she did was relax as her peers congratulated her on her win, and soon after the crowd dissipated to go back to watching their TV. Jubilee nodded and shook her hand.

 

“Good game,” she acknowledged, “one of these days I'll figure out how to throw a shoryuken, then you’ll be sorry,” Betsy patted her on the shoulder and laughed,

 

“No, I'll still kick your ass,” she immediately looked to Thor, still standing next to Adam.

 

“I know you,” Betsy said, pointing at Thor, “you're an Avenger right?

 

“Formerly,”

 

“Knew it, Thor right?”

 

“Aye,”

 

“Alright,” Betsy turned away. She didn’t care. Jubilee was stuck looking at him in awe, “anything you wanna say?” Jubilee opened her mouth, and some vocalizations came out, but they weren't words at all, more like some kind of starstruck rambling. She did however manage to squeak out a “hi” to him and shook his hand as she admired his biceps. Adam then summoned Thor back to finish the tour. He led him out from the game room, and up the stairs, and finally up to his own room.

 

“This is it,” he told him. The room was decently sized, and it astonished Thor. It had a dresser with a mirror over it, the bed was placed in a corner of the room. There was a closet, and a small area where you could walk outside onto a balcony. Such a big house yet here he was in such a small room? He guessed he was so accustomed to regality that whenever something was regularly sized, he was shocked. He was comfortable, nevertheless. “Lunch and dinner are whenever you choose it to be. This is a home, not a boarding school,”

 

“I will be sure to keep it in mind,” as Adam walked away, Thor nodded. He placed his suitcase down and began to unpack. He opened up a drawer and to his surprise something was in there. He unfolded the thing to realize it was a tank top. It was a grey one, obviously meant for women, and it had lettering on it: “S.T.A.R.S”. Crap. That wasn't his, and he didn't think it was meant for him. He quickly chased down Adam. “Adam!” He called, “whose is this?” He threw the tank top to Adam, which Adam caught. He unfolded it from the ball it was in to see what it was. He knew immediately,

 

“It’s from the lady who had the room before you, she moved out, I'll make sure she gets it,” Adam told him. Thor smiled and he went back into his room. He went back to his bed and laid down upon it. _You know what_ , he thought to himself, _I’m going to like it here._

 

\---

 

Finally, almost home. The trio’s mustang pulled off the road of the mountain reserve to the dirt road surrounded by trees that led to the house. Suddenly Kitty remembered something, something she had to tell Ben so she quickly tapped his shoulder to get his attention.

 

“Oh, Ben! Forgot to tell ya’,” she exclaimed, “Jill moved out!”

 

“What!” Ben exclaimed right back at her, “No way! What happened?”

 

“She got a new job, apparently she became a cop but in Berlin,”

 

“So? She couldn't have stayed here?”

 

“I dunno? She didn't tell me this shit, she just kinda left,”

 

“Damn,” he sighed. The trees faded away, and the road only led to the house now. “Why wasn't I told?” He asked.

 

“Because you never spoke to anyone during your little stint,” Jyn told him. That instantly shushed him. Ben began to think, _Jill,_ he thought, _Jill Valentine is gone. Damn shame, I really liked her._ The road ended. Jyn hit a button on the clicker and the garage door opened up. She pulled the blue mustang into the first open spot. They had one of those massive garages for multiple cars, so anywhere was a parking space. They had an old VW van for transporting folks en mass (it fit like 6 people but they enjoyed it), a white Lotus Esprit because of how much Ben adored _The Spy Who Loved Me_ , and just two or so more cars, these owned by the rest of the folks here just so they can have some general transportation. One was a Toyota, the other was like a Nissan. The second mustang (the red one) was mysteriously missing, but Ben didn't want to ask about it. Someone had probably been lent it, so he didn't mind. _Mi casa es tu casa_ , he took that very seriously here, as long as it wasn't broken by the end of the day.

 

Jyn entered the house first. She walked into the den and greeted Cassian warmly with a hug and a kiss, and when she saw Bodhi next to him, granted him a hug as well. Kitty was next to enter. She made a beeline for the kitchen, she was feeling a little peckish. Ben was the last to enter. He spent a few seconds looking around, because it was so good to be home. He felt like something had been changed, something had happened here, but nothing had. Everything was just as it was before. He stopped to admire a picture hanging on the wall. It was a group photo with everyone in it, but it was old now. It had him with both eyes. Jill and her friend Leon were still in it. They'd have to retake it sometime soon. As soon as he began to walk to the stairs he saw through the great wide windows that there was Adam, lying shirtless out there on the hammock, like a lazy lion sunbathing out in the savannah.

 

He would have said hi, but was interrupted by Cassian giving him a pat on the back and giving him a hug because he was finally home and Bodhi looking at him in a terrified awe because he looked so different now and Rogue giving him a huge hug because she had heard about his attack and only wanted the best for him and the next thing he knew he was ushered to the game room where it just seemed to be a blur of hugs and pats on the back and Chirrut feeling his face to see how his facial structure changed after the attack and Baze telling him that he looked “strong enough to pull the ears from a gundark” and Betsy saying that he looked fantastic now and like a real warrior: a true honorary X-man now, and a rare compliment from Logan saying that the stitches would lead to great scars and if he ever broke it off with Adam then it would be easier to pick up women because “chicks dig scars” and little Tails was terrified at first because he looked like Frankenstein’s Monster but as soon as he gave him a hug it was alright. And then everyone had to ask about his eye. Was it still there? Yes. Was it intact? Yes. So this means you're partially blind? Yes. Would you regain your eyesight? No. Can we see it? Later.

 

And just like that, it was done. Everyone snapped back to their normal lives. They returned to texting and watching TV and drinking and playing video games. He felt like already he was yesterday's news. So, with everyone finally finished speaking he began to walk back to the deck, and to his surprise: Adam wasn't there. The hammock had emptied out. Scanning around he saw nothing, and he wasn't in the living room. Must have just went back to their room then. He walked up the stairs to the second level of the house where the rooms were, and slowly walked to his room. His room was fairly far off. All the rooms were arranged neatly in a line on the second level along a wall, his room was somewhere along the middle of the line. The door was shut, but he could hear the sound of running water even from afar. Big guy must be taking a shower. He didn't wanna disturb him.

 

Two doors down from him was Jill’s old room. The door was open, just a little bit. He'd have to close it, and maybe mutter some belated goodbyes under his breath in the empty room. He knew Jill wouldn't hear them, but it would make him feel better about not saying goodbye when he could. He was surprised to see then someone laying down on the bed in the room. The huge, muscular man certainly wasn't Jill, and when he sat up Ben immediately knew who he was. Not just the former god of thunder he was, that man lying on that bed was a man Ben had had a crush on for a while.

 

“Hello,” Thor said. It took Ben a few seconds, but he managed to squeak out a starstruck greeting. “Do you live here?” Thor asked him. Ben nodded. “Do I know you?” He asked, he seemed vaguely familiar to him, like a mutant he could have seen during a charity visit to Xavier's. Ben shook his head no. “Ok, what's your name?”

 

“Ben,”

 

“Ben? Oh! You're Ben!” He exclaimed, “I know about you!” Holy shit. Thor knew about him, this was better than goddamn Christmas. “Yes,” he said, “your boyfriend mentioned you on the phone when I called about the open room-,”

 

“Speaking of,” Ben interrupted, “how did you find out about this? The house, the room, Jill leaving?”

 

“Hank McCoy lives here, does he not?”

 

“He does,”

 

“Well, we met up in New York recently. Hank told me about your friend moving out, I told him that I was looking for a place to stay because I desired to leave the city..”

 

“So you came here?”

 

“Aye,”

 

“Huh, why'd you wanna leave the city, cause dude,” Ben took a seat next to Thor on the bed, “I’d kill to live there,”

 

“I needed privacy,”

 

“Privacy?”

 

“Aye,” he nodded, “I don't desire the intimacies of my life to be viewed by everyone, and the photographers followed my every move in the city. Here, much more secluded. I like it already,”

 

“Nice to know,” Ben nodded, he stook a hand out for Thor to shake, realizing that he hadn’t offered a friendly handshake before. Thor eagerly shook his hand with a firm grip that took Ben by surprise.

 

“It's been a pleasure to meet you,” Thor said.

 

“Pleasure’s all mine,” Ben said. He was still holding onto Thor’s hand, and he was wordlessly admiring Thor’s biceps that were quite literally chiseled by the gods. So after a second he let go. The two sat awkwardly on the bed. “I hope he recognizes me,” Ben said, seemingly into the air.

 

“Hmm?”

 

“My boyfriend, Adam. You probably saw him? He's hard to miss, being a giant furry guy and all,” Ben said. “I hope he recognizes me,”

 

“Why don't you just go see him?” Thor asked.

 

“He's in the shower, you don't hear it?”

 

“Hear it?”

 

“You don't hear the water running from here?” The room was absolutely silent, so Thor shook his head. “No?”

 

“No,”

 

“Huh,” once again Ben awkwardly fidgeted for a few seconds.

 

“Why did you say that?” Thor asked.

 

“Say what?”

 

“Why did you ask if Adam would recognize you? You are his boyfriend are you not? He should know you anywhere,” Ben started to chuckle.

 

“It was nothing, it's just... it's,” his laughter trailed off.

 

“What?”

 

“I don't even think my mother recognized me coming out of the surgery with these,” Ben said, gesturing to his stitches and the eyepatch, “And I haven't seen him in almost like two weeks…” he suddenly felt the area around his eye that was covered, and shot up off the bed. “Shit,” he muttered. He turned his back to Thor and lifted up the eyepatch to wipe the eye underneath it. “Sorry about that,” he said, putting his patch back to its normal place, “When I lost my eyesight I developed this funky medical condition. Hyper...hydro….hemo...haemolacria. Yeah that's what it was,”

 

“And that entails?”

 

“I weep blood from my eye socket. Spontaneously, I think”

 

“Oh,”

 

“Yeah it ain't fun. But lemme tell ya,” he sat back down next to Thor, “makes a great conversation starter at parties. But then again, I’m hardly getting invited to parties as is so,” that last bit got a chuckle from Thor. “Yeah. Past couple of days have been rough,” he sighed. His head suddenly perked up. “Adam’s out of the shower. Just heard the water go off, so I'm gonna go,” He had made the conversation awkward, great job. “I'll see you later?”

 

“Aye,” Thor nodded. Ben left. He just got up and walked away.

 

“Aye,” Ben said. And so he walked out of the room and closed the door behind him.

 

\--

He silently rapped his knuckles against the door, and when he noticed that his knock was too silent he knocked again, this time it was greeted with a response.

 

“I'm drying off, I'll be there in a second,”

 

He heard, but didn't care. He turned the knob to the door and entered his room for the first time in a week and a half. It was this very dull grey color on the walls, and it wasn't very well furnished. A bed was in the corner with a nightstand next to it, two dressers were across from the bed, next to the two was the doorway to the bathroom. A TV hung on the wall across from the bed. In the back corner was a doorway to a balcony. It was simple, and he loved it. He walked over to the dresser and pushed a little box wrapped in brown paper away to admire a picture in a frame of Ben with Adam with the Eiffel Tower in the background. Ben missed Paris, he really did. He placed his cards and his tin down next to it.

 

The bathroom door jiggled for a second, and the beast soon emerged from the bathroom. He had some pants on at least, thank god, and had a towel in his arms. He looked confused and furrowed his brow for a second, but the confusion melted away to shock when he realized just who it was before him.

 

“Hey big guy,” Ben told him. “Surprise,” Adam wasn't saying anything. His taIl was excitedly wagging behind him, and Adam was so thankful that his head was still semi-wet because it made it less obvious that tears were beginning to stream down his face. He quickly scooped up Ben into the biggest hug he could give. He had a whole speech in his mind for when Ben got back about how much he missed him and that every other resident here wished him the best and how he was so missed.

 

All he could say through sobs was: “You came back,”

 

He began to tighten his grip on the hug, and Ben wasn't having it.

 

“Adam, let go,” Adam didn't hear him, “Adam, let go!” He commanded, “You're hurting me!” That he heard, so Adam released Ben from his grip. Ben winced a little and lifted up his shirt to inspect his wounds, and there it was: a red spot formed on the right side of his body. A couple of the many stitches along Ben’s chest had been ripped and the skin had been torn back open, now the unsutured part of the reopened wound was starting to bleed.

 

“Oh, oh god, I'm sorry,” Adam gasped. He handed over the towel so Ben could wipe away the blood.

 

“No, don't,” Ben started dabbing the wound, “It'll be fine, they were gonna be taken out soon because it was almost healed. Almost,” he dabbed it again, it was still bleeding a little. “It'll be fine,” he said, only to reassure Adam. It wasn't a serious wound, it would probably clot up in a minute. So they both just stared at each other for a few seconds. Ben was admiring all the little details on Adam that he had forgotten. Spots of fur where the shade of brown was lighter than how it was on the rest of his body, and his bright blue eyes. All Adam could look at was the black eyepatch over Ben’s right eye, and Ben knew it. “You wanna see it?” He asked. Adam did not even need to say yes or no, because immediately after he asked the patch was off. And there it was: the “dead” eye of Benjamin Jones.

 

It wasn't as bad he thought it would be, but to be honest: Adam didn't even know what he was expecting. It was a blind eye. The coloring of his iris was still there (hazel, Adam thought they were the prettiest things ever), but there was thick white fog over it, like milk.

 

“There's no chance of me getting my sight back in it, so don't ask,” Ben said. It wasn't hard to pick up the regret and sadness in his voice.

 

“I wasn't going to,”

 

“Good,” Ben told him. Silence again. Adam spoke up to break it.

 

“You have no idea how good it is to have you back. Everyone missed you,” there was that speech Adam had been practicing in his head, “It was so hard just-”

 

“Don’t, please don’t,”

 

“What?”

 

“Don’t talk about that sort of stuff,”

 

“What sort of stuff?”

 

“I know that everyone missed me, they all gave me their pats on the back and their “Welcome Home’s”. And I know you missed me big guy, you don’t need to tell me twice,” Adam’s smile fell to a frown.

 

“Oh,” he sighed.

 

“No, look-”

 

“No, no. I get it,”

 

“It isn’t like that Adam. I’m not trying to be rude or anything it’s just that-”

 

“I said I get it, Ben, you don’t want to hear it? Fine, you won't get it from me. It’s nothing personal,”

 

“Is it? Because I’m not thinking so myself,” Ben had pushed the wrong buttons, now he had to do the damage control.

 

“It's just...this means a lot to me, you never spoke to anyone in the hospital, you never spoke to me or Mary or Jyn or anyone, and...I almost saw you die out there. That isn't something _anyone_ wants to see. It ripped open your face! You lost an eye! Look at what it did to your face! And then to-to know you survived, but and then you say that I can't see you-that _none_ of us can see you. To check in, to hold your hand just to know that you were ok,”

 

“My mother kept you informed,”

 

“I didn't want to speak to your mother. I wanted to speak to _you_. I worry. I worry too much. You know how my last relationship ended, You can't blame me for this?”

 

“I can't,” Silence again. “Adam,”

 

“Yes, Ben?”

 

“...You wanna go out to lunch?”

 

“Lunch?”

 

“Yeah, lunch. I haven't had a good burger in a week, I'm getting cravings. And actually I wanna speak to you about something,”

 

“You can't tell me this now?”

 

“I could, but I'm hungry and I wanna change up my clothes,”

 

“But still, you can't speak to me about whatever you want to speak about now?”

 

“Aw come on. You're here speaking about how much you missed me and ya don't even wanna take me on a date?”

 

“Well if you put it like that…”

 

“Ha, yeah. So go get changed big guy, I'll get changed as well when you're done,” Ben placed the towel Adam had handed him onto the dresser, “I'm gonna go downstairs and speak to everyone. Gonna go play catch up,” he reached for his eyepatch and placed it back on his head. As he turned away his elbow struck the little brown paper wrapped box off the table. “Shit!” He muttered. He would've grabbed it himself if Adam hadn’t have grabbed it before him.

 

“It’s Mary’s,” he explained, “She asked me to hold it for her while she was gone,”

 

“Oh, alright. I'll be back in a few then,”

 

“Ok,” Adam nodded. And then Ben was out of the room, and Adam was alone again.

 

What the hell was the thing that Mary had made him intercept? Why the hell was it so important to her? What was it? It rattled when he shook it; multiple parts?  Adam thumbed around a part of it where Tails had ripped open the brown paper wrapping. It wasn't too ripped, but he could make out lettering on the box under it. Two letters, part of a larger word: _er._ Ok, “er”, it was something. Maybe just rip it open just a liiittlleee bit more, which he did. The letters now spelled “ver”. “Ver”? And another word partially spelled underneath it: “ets”.  What the hell was…

 

Wait. Beast was a smart man. What ended with “ver” and could end with “ets”

 

Oh.

 

_Oh._

 

Oh he knew exactly what those were

 

The next time he saw her, Mary Warren would be a dead woman.

The time? She anxiously checked her phone, it was 12:15 on the dot. Can't take that long to be done with boarding? Can it?

 

She didn't need to be this anxious, the plane didn't explode (to her knowledge), nothing went wrong (Again, to her knowledge). So why was it taking Naomi this long.

 

Time kept passing by, but there she was waiting outside that stupid airport. Come one Naomi, where the hell are you? And it was no soon after she asked to herself this that that Naomi appeared.

 

Naomi Caroline was built. Built more than most woman. And she took pride of it. She worked out almost every day, it started when at age fourteen when she decided that when the boy who was two years older than she was pushed her down, she would get back up and knock two of his damn teeth out. She did. And when she was suspended for a week it only motivated her to work harder. Twelve years later, it payed off. Nobody fucks with Naomi Caroline.

 

Her massive figure nearly crushed the tiny Mary in a hug, but Mary didn't mind.

 

“Christ!” She yelled, “So good to see you again cous!”

 

“Great to see you too, Mary,” she smiled. Mary got out of the hug and went over to the car so she could pop the trunk open. She took the two bags from Naomi’s hands and placed them in the trunk. With that, she turned on the car and drove off from the airport.

 

“Any place you’d wanna visit before going home?” Mary asked, “we’re gonna pass through the city, I can take you anywhere,” Naomi chose lunch in Times Square.

 

They spoke endlessly. Naomi had moved away years ago, and the two had barely seen each other since. She traded the wasteland of New Jersey for the colder wasteland of Minnesota. It sucked, but she moved for the promise of free college education. It payed off, she was granted a huge scholarship in some fancy college (fancy for Minnesota, but it was literally free. Who was she to judge?) and when she finished her studies (major in zoology and minor in botany, how interesting), she opted to stay in her new home as her work commanded her to.

 

“God!” Mary exclaimed, “it's been so long, how've you been? How’s work?”

 

“Work? Oh work’s great,” she said. Work was studying the phenomenon of the new fictional reality. It wasn’t isolated. This wasn't just Jyn Erso in Berlin and Adam in Paris, all over the world what once was in a movie, or a book, or a comic, or even a game had become real. Branches had been set up across the United States to promote studies of not just the people, but flora and fauna of these places that had been sucked into our world. “We had this insane incident, guy got swallowed by a gigantic plant, not in my department of course,”

 

“No way!”

 

“Yeah! No fucking joke, I heard the thing just picked him up and then just sucked him in like he was a goddamn tootsie roll. Heard it took like twenty minutes to get him out, and they had to slice the plant open like they were gutting a damn fish! It was WILD!”

 

“Dude, holy shit!”

 

“Ugh, I know. My department has been so boring as of late it pains me,” Naomi stopped for a second to take a bite of her salad, “I got the worst assignment, you ever play Skyrim?”

 

“I tried it once. Played as the cat person, whatever the hell it was called,”

 

“Khajiit,”

 

“Yeah, that guy,”

 

“Well get this, one of them finds himself in a ditch by the highway. Cops pick him up, and so they send him to us, and of course he’s in the holding room confused to high hell, convinced he’s in like cat hell. And the fucking kicker is that he had all his shit with him like, you know how they’re like merchants?”

 

“Yeah,”

 

“Guy refuses to turn over his shit unless we trade for it. I swear to god, he had his hands- er paws clamped like a damn vice on his bag, and all my colleagues were like ‘We’re the government here, and we need to know if you can kill us with what’s in that,’ and he's just there like ‘Khajiit will only trade,’ What an asshole. And you know what! He wouldn’t take our money even, we’re telling him ‘listen buddy, this is the currency here ,’ and he just says ‘Khajiit only accepts gold,’ We got him to give it up when we dug through storage and found some old, gold coins. Everyone else got lucky, they get to study the guy. I’m stuck in the back with about two other people trying to decipher what the hell all his herbs and potions are,”

 

“But, that’s what you studied in college right? I thought you’d like that sorta shit?”

 

“Botany and herbology and all that jazz are nice, but when you see everyone getting to interact with the cool lookin’ cat dude, it kinda pales in comparison. Plus it’s an insane amount of paperwork. It’s all ‘this potion has X amounts of calcium and X amounts of materials unknown’ and then we have to wait for the FDA to say if it can go into testing for human use, which is bullshit cause if a human can use it in Skyrim we can use it here, or if we can see about giving it to some company to mass produce and sell because they’re all interested in trying to slap an ‘as seen in Skyrim’ sticker on something to grab a few bucks. Very boring,”

 

“Sounds like it,”

 

“But what about you Mary? What did you say you were majoring in?”

 

“Fine arts,”

 

“FINE ARTS?!” Naomi roared with laughter, “God! Do you even want a job!?”

 

“Oh, come on!” Mary groaned, “It could be a job, maybe I’ll become an art teacher. Don’t be that person,”

 

“Sorry, sorry. When are you graduating? Shouldn’t you be out this year?”

 

“No,” Mary shook her head, “I took a year off,”

 

“A year off?”

 

“Yeah. Ben decided that he could just stick with his boyfriend for the year and when he extended the invitation, I decided to join him. We’ve got a mutual living arrangement going on, it's great: it's just like a dormitory but with people I actually like and it doesn't reek of weed everywhere,”

 

“Wait, so you took the year off too? Don't you wanna finish your studies?”

 

“I do, it's just….I needed a break, I needed to stop and just consider what I was doing,”

 

“How so?”

 

“I dunno. I was just so stressed so often and I felt like I could never shake it, so I sat myself down and I said to myself: ‘I need to put my mental health priorities in front of my academic life,’ because I absolutely knew that if I stayed there any longer then I had to would have had to have been committed,”

 

“Oh, oh I'm sorry,”

 

“Don't be. Come September I'll take my senior year and I'll be out with a degree and I'll be ready for whatever happens,” Mary said with a smile. She knew she was getting better every day. “Are you finished?” She asked, noticing the empty salad platter in front of her.

 

“Just about,” Naomi said, “you ready to go?”

 

“Yeah, let's go,”

 

\--

 

Ben had dug into his burger like it was his first meal in weeks. Sitting across from him in the diner booth was Adam.

 

“God!” He moaned, “so much better than hospital slop, I swear they fed me baby food and passed it off as like ‘nutritious’” He stopped to swallow the last bit of his burger, “I had to have my mother smuggle me in snacks the first week there, and then they got the nerve to call it a ‘cheese sandwich’ when it’s a fuckin’ kraft single between two pieces of toast,” Adam began to chuckle.

 

“Such a colorful vernacular you have,” he said.

 

“Yeah well we all can't be princes. You got to grow up in the city of love. I was born where they hung a buncha witches and moved to a place where the only time we were relevant was when we almost were on The Sopranos. They chose Little Falls Instead, assholes,”

 

“The Sopranos _?_ ”

 

“That TV show about the mobsters who live around these parts,”

 

“I never watched it,”

 

“Eh, me neither. In my personal opinion I thought The Wire was an infinitely better show,”

 

“I never got that show,”

 

“I made you watch it!”

 

“And I still don’t understand it! The ending, what was that ending?”

 

“I thought they wrapped it up nicely,”

 

“And I say that they should have made more,”

 

“Well I guess I'll have to make you sit through all of it again, because clearly you have no concept of a good ending,” Ben stopped. He noticed that Adam wasn't eating his burger. “You gonna finish that?” He asked. Adam said nothing, he just slid the plate forwards to him. “Thanks,” he said. He took a few bites, but then he stopped himself. He pushed the plate back to Adam. “Sorry man, that was selfish of me. This is yours. You should finish it,”

 

“No, no,” he assured, “Finish it, I don't need it,” Adam pushed the plate back to Ben.

 

“No man I-”

 

“I insist!” He said. Ben just took a bite out of the burger. He noticed Adam was lovingly staring at him. “What?” He asked.

 

“Nothing,” Adam responded, “you just look like an idiot,”

 

“An idiot?” Ben looked at what he was wearing. He had changed out of his Nintendo shirt to a pure black t-shirt, and he had let his hair down. He had put on a black military style beret as well. It was technically a full military outfit too, with a full set of combat pants and boots on. He felt awfully snazzy with his outfit today, and goddamn it he thought he looked great. It took him a few seconds to realize however, “You're joking with me aren't you?” When Adam laughed he knew he was just ribbing with him. He began to playfully punch Adam’s arm. “You're an ass, you know that? You're a fucking ass,” Adam was only laughing as he deflected all the punches to his bicep. “Did I tell you that I hate you? I really do,”

 

“Oh do you?”

 

“Yep,” he was joking, obviously, “oh I can't stand you, you're unbearable,”

 

“Am I?”

 

“Yeah, yeah you are,” he chuckled, “oh you're the worst person on the planet,”  

 

“Oh I am?”

 

“Yep, you're terrible, absolutely terrible,”

 

“Well I suppose if I'm so terrible that I can leave now, and if I am so truly horrible you can pay for your own food then?”

 

“....Well you got me there big guy,” He couldn't think of anything better to say. Ben wasn't exactly the master of comebacks, and he didn't want to say anymore. They both awkwardly chuckled for a few seconds before returning to silence. Ben nervously checked his phone for any messages, thinking to himself _How do I do this? How can I tell him?_

 

This was it, no turning back now.

 

“Adam,” he said. Adam looked up from his phone.

 

“Yes?” He asked.

 

Ben looked troubled. He was trying to say something, but nothing was coming out of his mouth. This was hard. How do you start this? How do you break the news of this gently? _Hey Adam, you know how you always cry over being a giant furry beast? Well guess what once the full moon comes at least you won't be alone?_ Or maybe just say it, just let it out like how you rip off a bandaid. _I'm a werewolf, Adam._ That was it, that was all he needed to say. It wasn't that hard! _I'm a werewolf._

 

_I'm a werewolf._

 

_I'm a werewolf!_

 

_I'm a fucking werewolf!_

 

_Fucking say it Benjamin!_

 

“Is something wrong?” Adam asked.

 

“What?”

 

“Is something the matter?”

 

“No, nothing's the matter,”

 

“Then were you going to say something?”

 

This was it man, you couldn't go back from this. He took the beret off of his head and ran his fingers through his hair.

 

“Look, buddy,” he took a deep, hearty sigh, “...fuck. I can't. I just dunno how to put it. Fuck,”

 

“What?”

 

“...fuck! I just,” tears were starting to well up in his eyes, so he wiped them away. The blood was coming out of his dead eye now, great. Another thing to wipe away. Instinctively, Adam handed him a napkin.

 

“Thanks,” he said. He wiped the tears from his left eye and the blood from his right. “It’s fine,” Ben assured, “it'll just bleed a little bit, I'm fine,” Adam murmured something under his breath.

 

“What?” Ben asked.

 

“I said I'm starting to think that you aren't,”

 

“...And you know what Adam,”

 

“What?”

 

“I'm starting to think so myself,” he said through tears. One eye was wet with tears, the other with blood. Both were immediately wiped clean. The time was now. “I’m a werewolf,” he said calmly. “I'm a goddamn werewolf,” and thus the waterworks began again.

 

“Come here,” Adam said. He pushed himself as far into the corner of the booth as he could, and adjusted his tail over his lap, so that it wouldn't be sat on. Ben wiped the tears from his face and got up. He buried his face deep into Adam’s side. “I'm going to give you some advice,” Adam said, “Do you know what’s going to happen?” He asked.

 

“Full moon’s gonna come. I'm gonna become a giant fuckin’ Wolf,”

 

“That's true,” he said, “very true, but-”

 

“But what?”

 

“But, you're gonna wake up. When the pain is gone and the transformation is over you're going to look at yourself. You're going to look down at your brand new legs, and the fur on your body,” Adam held his paws out over the table for Ben to see, “and at your new paws, and once you see your reflection you're going to scream and cry. You're going to look to this hideous _beast_ staring back at you in the mirror and weep and beg and plead to god ‘oh why! Why me!?’ And you’re going to get no response. That's when you smash the mirror. And you're going to see all your old photographs and you're going to want to rip them all apart because that isn't you, not anymore. And when you look back into that mirror or what remains of it, and you're going to weep once again because that thing looking back at you is _you_ and there's nothing you can do about it. And do you know what I want you to do then?”

 

“What?”

 

“I want you to count your blessings. I want you to be thankful. I want you to know that this is luck, and that when the full moon vanishes you are going to return to exactly how you used to look before and all you’ll have to do is sweep away the glass and bandage your wounds and tape all your old photographs back together before getting to go outside again. I want you to be grateful that you get to become human again when this is all over. You get to look human. You get to be human. I don't,”

 

All that could be heard when he was finished was the sound of Ben’s sniffles as he sobbed into Adam’s chest.

 

“You done with your food?” Adam asked. Ben nodded. He reached for his eyepatch and beret and placed them back on his head.

 

“I'm good,” he said.

 

Adam paid for the meal, it was the least he could do. Ben drove them home. He sat up in front of the mustang, Adam sat in the back because he felt that he wouldn't fit into the passenger seat up front.

 

“Hey,” he said reaching up to put a comforting paw on Ben’s shoulder, “I didn't mean to come out so tense back there,”

 

“It's fine,” Ben sighed as he turned the key in the ignition.

 

“It's just that I know what you must be feeling now. And I just don't want you to be alone, you have me and Mary, and I'm very sure Hank would be sympathetic to your plight,”

 

“Thank you Adam,”

 

“Hey Ben,”

 

“Yeah,”

 

“Don't listen to what everyone’s gonna say about you. I had to read that trash every day while you were in the hospital. I think you look beautiful, nobody can take that away from you” Ben sighed deeply.

 

“I look like I should be dead,”

 

He shifted the gear into reverse and pulled out of the parking spot.

 

\--

 

Trees. Trees everywhere. This was not a surprise however, they lived on a mountain reserve. The road was seemingly endless.

 

“Are you sure we’re in New Jersey still?” Naomi asked, “because I'm very sure we've gotten lost somewhere and we wound up in Twin Peaks,”

 

“Very funny,” Mary chided, “it’s the scenic route. There's a shorter way in but on a hot day like today there’s people everywhere. They all like to jog and walk their dogs and whatever. This is windes around and takes longer but it's our private entrance,”

 

“Private entrance?”

 

“Yeah, it's great, we're freakin’ royalty up here,”

 

“Royalty?”

 

“Yeah, royalty. We’re on private property in the middle of a nature reserve. The whole story is that the guy who used to own this house died and so the people who ran this place immediately tried to run in and add the house to the place, keep it open as like a museum or some shit. But, right before they do so, Adam swoops in, and buys the whole place! They were so fucking pissed I'll tell you that. First three months when we were here all it was these people calling like ‘sell, sell, sell, sell, please sell!’ But he never let go. I think Ben started dropping hints that if they started pampering us then maybe if we all left we’d give it to them. So they take care of our garbage, they keep the lawn clean, all that jazz,”

 

“And I suppose that's how you get your electricity?”

 

“Actually no, solar panels,”

 

“Solar panels? Very neat,” the road was finally ending, and the massive mansion was in sight. “That's it?” Naomi asked, “it's huge!”

 

“Yeah,” Mary said, “guy who owned this place before us was this German party monster who thought he was Jay Gatsby,” she momentarily stopped the car to click a remote that she took from the glove compartment. Up ahead, the garage door opened and the car started forwards again, “guy had money to blow with nothing to blow it on. So, he comes to America, blows his money on a mansion and parties and women. He was some kinda like industrialist or like… I dunno he was I think like some Tony Stark kind of person, but the key point here is that he was so crazy rich and powerful that when the money rolled out it rolled right back in, so he kept funding these parties and kept buying all these drugs and all this booze,-”

 

“And then he died?”

 

“Yeah he did,”

 

“Do you know how?”

 

“I read it was old age,”

 

“Ah,”

 

“Mixed with a cocaine overdose,”

 

“Oh,” the car finally pulled into the garage. Mary parked it next to the Esprit. “You got a lotta cars here don't you?” Naomi asked.

 

“And you just have a lot questions today don't you?” She chuckled, “Adam bought a couple of them. I think Jyn may have bought one. I'm unsure myself honestly,” the sound of another car pulling in quickly got her attention. “Well I'll be damned!” She exclaimed as she noticed who the driver was. The red mustang pulled in next to the blue one, and when Ben stepped out she gave an excited shriek and pulled him into a hug. “You sunovabitch! First you don't call for a week and a half and then next thing I know you're calling me asking to pick you up! And look at you! Look at you now, you look like what? You look like a fucking Bond villain!” Mary looked over Ben’s shoulder and noticed that Adam was leering over at her with his head resting on his arm from the back seat of the car.

 

“Yeah,” he scoffed, “nice to see you too Mary,” Ben peered over Mary’s shoulder, “is that you Naomi?” He asked.

 

“In the flesh,” she said as she got up to shake his hand, “how you doing, Big Boss?” She joked.

 

“Big Boss?” He asked, “nice one. You know I'd be laughing a little more if he hadn’t broken my nose last year,”

 

“No way,”

 

“Yes way, and it's a long story,” Ben reached into the car to push a button. A second after the trunk popped open. “I'll help get Naomi situated. Naomi, you're gonna wanna meet everyone, so I'll help introduce you,” he said as he walked over to pick up her bags.

 

“Oh good,” Adam said from the backseat of the car, “I've been meaning to speak to Mary today,”

 

“You have?” Asked Mary.

 

“Yes, and it's a matter of importance. Ben,  you wouldn't mind lea-” Ben was already gone, so Adam’s attention returned to Mary. He got up from the backseat and looked directly at Mary. “Come with me,” he commanded. Such seriousness in his voice, Mary wondered what could be bothering him. They walked out of the garage together, up into the house. People who passed by said “hi” to Adam, but he paid them no mind at all. He didn't even look in their direction. Whatever this was, it had gotten under his skin. When they walked up the stairs, Ben and Naomi were walking down. Ben grinned a little as he passed his boyfriend. Adam didn't even see him. When they entered Adam’s room he shut the door as silently as he could.

 

“Adam, what's this about?” Mary asked. Adam said absolutely nothing. He opened up a drawer to his dresser and tossed Mary something. Her package. Mary sat down on the bed and she felt the area where the brown paper wrapping had been ripped and inspected it, “Did you open this?” She asked, “I thought I told you to-”

 

“I didn't touch it. Don't go yelling at me for this. Tails got it before I did, and don't you _dare_ yell at that child for this, he did nothing. Open it,”

 

“What?”

 

“Open it. If it is what I thought it was then you are going to have a lot of explaining to do,” So Mary complied. In a few seconds the brown paper wrapping was off the box and Mary sat silently looking at it.

 

“Hand it over,” Adam said. Mary tossed the unwrapped box to them, and Adam caught it. A deep growl escaped from the back of his throat.

 

Silver bullets. Mary bought silver bullets.

 

“Adam, I-”

 

“Mary,” he said as he put the silver bullets down on the dresser, “I'm going to give you one minute and you are going to explain that you didn't buy silver bullets because you knew that silver bullets kill werewolves-”

 

“Adam, listen-”

 

“No! No I will not listen! You cannot even _fathom_ how betrayed I feel right now. Or how betrayed he’s gonna feel?”

 

“Adam just shut up for one second and hear me out. Adam, _listen_ . If you even think that there's one ounce of malicious intent in me against the boy, against a boy who I've known for close to twenty years then you're a fucking idiot. You know why I bought these? I was scared. Was that what you wanted to hear? I was fucking scared because I read on the news that werewolves could kill and they were virtually unstoppable if not for silver. And those pictures...oh god if you had seen what I had seen you'd have done what I have. They call it going feral, and I read that's why Ben may have been attacked to begin with. If put under enough emotional duress then werewolves tend to revert to an animalistic state and when they do they go berserker and just attack whatever they can. It's a first instinct. Listen, I know that Ben is a good kid, he's smart and kind and he's been my closest friend but god; We don't know what's gonna happen when he goes wolf and with all the problems he’s had I don't know if he would snap or not. Adam, I didn't buy silver bullets as a plan A. They aren't even my plan B or C. This is plan fucking Z. This is beyond plan Z. You think that I would kill my best friend? You think I would want to do this? Would you want to shoot Belle if it boiled down to something this?” Adam was uncomfortably silent she _really_ had to try and tap that nerve huh? “of course you wouldn't. I don't wanna see anyone hurt because of this. Imagine having to go and see all your friends mauled to death and there was nothing you could do to stop it. Would you prefer the cops shoot him to death? Or maybe would you maybe want Logan to rip his head off? Yeah. I didn't think so. This is mercy here,” she said. Adam was crying. The tears were starting to well up in his eyes. It was time for Mary to stop. “Look Adam. I'm sorry I kept this secret from you, but it's what I needed to do,” Adam was starting to chuckle. “What? What's so funny?”

 

“He won't go wild. He won't. And this is all going to bite you in the ass. When it does, I won't cry for you. You walked into this yourself,” he stopped to wipe away his watery eyes, “do you even have a gun?” He asked.

 

“No,” Mary said, “I had to quickly buy these before they voted on the silver act. I owe Logan so many favors for this. I'll find a way to get the gun. Why?”

 

“Just asking,” he said. He opened the door and stopped before he could leave. “I think people like you are why they want that act passed,” he said before he left. He shut the door behind him, leaving Mary alone to consider what she had done. She only cried for a few minutes before she took the bullets to her room and tried to take a short nap. She couldn’t.

 

\--

 

“And this is our game room,” Ben said as he opened up the door, “everyone usually loves to pile in here to relax so I'm pretty sure you’ll meet everyone in here,” he held the door open so Naomi could enter before him. How courteous. Jyn was just leaving as the two entered. Ben quickly stopped her “Oh just the person I was looking for, Naomi you saw Rogue One right?”

 

“I did,” she nodded, “wasn't my favorite Star Wars movie, but I thought it was serviceable,” Jyn looked offended.

 

“Serviceable? My friends and I didn't die stealing the Death Star plans just to have you say it was serviceable,” she joked. It was a very uncomfortable joke. A kind of joke that left the person being told the joke unsure if they should laugh or to just leave behind an uncomfortable chuckle, “Jyn Erso. Pleasure to meet you,” she extended a hand for Naomi to shake.

 

“Pleasure meeting you too,” she said, shaking Jyn’s hand, “You were my favorite honestly,”

 

“Oh that's nice,” she said with a smile. Her attention then turned to Ben, “I’ve been looking for Bodhi, you see him anywhere?”

 

“Oh, no. Probably in the kitchen,” she asked him.

 

“Thanks,” she said, shoving her way through the two.

 

“We got her whole squad here,” he said to Naomi, “they're all amazing people. Go talk to Cassian or Baze, they'll tell you amazing stories,”

 

“I'll make a note of it,” she said. Ben grabbed her hand and led her onwards.

 

“Naomi, this is Kitty Pryde,”

 

“Hello,” Kitty said, offering a hand to shake.

 

“Hello” Naomi said, receiving a hand to be shaken. This repeated until Naomi had met everyone and everyone had met Naomi. Baze and Chirrut, Jubilee and Laura, and even catching Logan.

 

“And this is the new guy, Thor,” Ben said, gesturing over to Thor. He smiled up to the two.

 

“Greetings,” he said. “I am-”

 

“We know,” Ben chuckled. He noticed Naomi looking a little starstruck. “Anything you wanna say to him?”

 

“Uhh, no,”

 

“Naomi I’m very sure he doesn’t bite. You can say ‘hello’ to him,” Ben nudged Naomi over to Thor who was sitting on the couch there.

 

“Well,” she spluttered, “Um, hi,”

 

“Hello,” he said with a chuckle. He moved over slightly to allow Naomi to take a seat. “Sit with me,” he said. Naomi did just that. “So are you staying with us permanently?” He asked.

 

“Oh, oh no. I'm just here for a little while,”

 

“Aw, that's too bad, I quite enjoy looking at your pretty face,” _Oh my god_ Ben thought to himself _. He was flirting with her!_

 

“Oh, oh, I have a boyfriend,” she said. Naomi quickly turned to Ben. “I think I'll have to keep reminding myself of that,”

 

“Me too,” Ben sighed. Naomi had begun to laugh.

 

“What is it?” Thor asked.

 

“Ah god, if you had told me when I was younger that I'd be sitting with an avenger when I grew up I don't think I'd ever believe you. It's weird, like I still can't fully wrap my head around this, like, holy shit, I'm here with an avenger!”

 

“Well get used to it because you're going to be living with him for as long as you’re here,” Ben said.

 

“Aye,” Thor nodded. This got another giggle from Naomi, which cause Ben to furrow his brow.

 

“Sorry,” Thor said with a grin, “I seem to have that effect on women. And men too, but I have no qualms with that,”

 

“Aw,” cooed Ben, “how nice,” Ben patted Thor on the shoulder as he began to walk away, “There’s a reason that you’re one of like three avengers I tolerate,”

 

“You don’t like the avengers?” Naomi asked, “How can you not like the avengers?” At that very moment, almost every former x-man in the room perked up and looked towards Naomi.

 

“Oh,” a voice said, “Oh it is _very_ easy to hate the avengers,” That was Betsy Braddock speaking. She noticed that Chirrut and Baze were off on the other end of the couch, speaking to each other. A thought came into her mind, it was devious but it was how she knew she could win this. “You two,” she called. She knew who they were, she watched their movie a couple of times but never really spoke with them. “You’re the Star Wars guys, you’re from that planet that got blown up?” Chirrut opened his mouth to say something, but Baze spoke before him.

 

“It was a city, but yes,” they then grumbled to themselves about something (probably Baze cutting off Chirrut in conversation) that Betsy really didn’t care about.

 

“Can I ask you two a question then?”

 

“Absolutely,”

 

“How many people died?” the two were stunned.

 

“Excuse me?” Chirrut asked.

 

“How many people were killed when the empire destroyed your home?” The two shuffled awkwardly amongst each other.

 

“Why must you know?” Baze asked.

 

“Answer the question,” Betsy commanded. The duo whispered amongst themselves.

 

“A couple hundred thousand perhaps, I don’t know,” Baze answered.

 

“Couple hundred thousand. Well boys, what if I told you that there was a city of sixteen _million?_ Sixteen million people who sought haven because the outside world was terrified of them,” Thor knew exactly where this was going to lead to and if she said it, then the guilt would never leave him, “Now, what if I told you that these people who called themselves ‘Earth’s Mightiest Heroes’ did just about close to nothing to stop these sixteen million people from being murdered in an act of genocide? Or how about when the survivors turned up and begged for help they did nothing,”

 

“Betsy, stop,” Thor said

 

“So he knows my name,” she said, “I didn’t think you’d know my name,”

 

“I know who you are, Betsy Braddock,”

 

“Oh you do?” She said, “well I-”

 

“Sixteen _million?”_ Chirrut asked, butting into the conversation, “I did hear you correctly did I? Sixteen million dead on your watch?” Thor was silent for a few seconds,

 

“Yes,” Thor said. Chirrut said nothing. He picked up his staff and left the room with Baze to meditate. It helped calm him down in situations like this instead of blowing up in anger. Logan was in the back shaking his head.

 

“Braddock,” he said, “you act like you were there,”

 

“Neither were you,” she said.

 

“But I do know a little more about the situation then you do, we didn't even know about the attack until the last minute,”

 

“That proves my point even further! The avengers have always had the government back them up, it could've been easy for them to keep an eye on people like Trask and it never occurred to them to keep an eye on him and track his family? The man creates giant fucking robots who were made specifically to kill members of a marginalized community and the avengers don't think ‘this man _miiiiggght_ just be a terrorist, let's keep tabs on him,’”

 

“Look, Betsy, _you weren't there_. You weren't a member of the team, and you certainly weren't on Genosha, so take it easy,”

 

“Take it easy!? Why would I-, oh, oh I know why you're like this all of a sudden,” Logan looked puzzled,

 

“What? What did I do?”

 

“You were one of ‘Em,” she said, wagging her finger, “you were on Tony Stark’s payroll for how long?”

 

“Don't bring it up,”

 

“No, no you were on there for years I think? God, no wonder you're so far up their asses,”

 

“Betsy, enough,”

 

“What was it you saw with them? They treat us like shit and you just ready up and join them? Or maybe was it just because you and Stark were butt buddies,” Her final comment was the straw that broke the camel's back. Immediately Logan lept up from his seat and Betsy felt him grab her by her shirt collar down to his level.

 

“Braddock,” he sneered, _“enough_ ,”

 

“Are you angry because it's true?” She said. She found the right nerve to pick, so she was just going to keep picking. “Personally I can't see you two together,”

 

“Listen,” he growled, “Tony Stark is a good man, and-”

 

“You say good man, I say war profiteer. Although I suppose to you it's tomato-tomatoe, isn't it,” Betsy felt the cold adamantium claws on her neck. “Now, now Logan,” Logan felt the warmth of the psychic blade on his neck, “you like me too much to kill me,” Logan chuckled, and the claws receded. He let go of her and walked back to the bar. “Let's not let that get between us, Logan,” she said.

 

“Is that your way of apologizing?” He asked.

 

“It is what it is,” she said, walking over to the game cabinet. “Tony Stark,” she muttered to whoever was listening, “Tony fucking Stark, How could you even defend that man when he’s shown time and time again that he doesn't even care about mutant struggles unless it comes at a benefit to him,”

 

Nobody was listening to her.

 

“Are they always like this?” Naomi asked Ben.

 

“They're at each other's throats most of the time, but I don't think I've ever seen the claws come out like that…” Ben looked to Thor, “look at what you did!” He said, Thor looked shocked and Ben had to pay his shoulder reassuringly just to let him know it was a joke. At that very same time, Mary entered the room. She noticed the quiet atmosphere and looked around and asked,

 

“What happened?”

 

“Oh,” Ben said standing up from next to Naomi on the couch, “oh you missed it,” he walked over to Mary and lead her from the room, “I gotta speak to you about something. We should go speak in private, Cassian!” he called to the sleepy man lying like a lump on a log, “Can you show Naomi around?” He nodded. “Great, let’s go Mary,”

 

“Ok,” she nodded as the two walked out of the game room together, and walked up into the main hall. Coming inside was Hank McCoy.

 

“Hank!” Ben exclaimed, “good to see you,” Hank said nothing. He just walked away, ignoring the both of them.  

 

“God,” Ben muttered to Mary, “who put a stick up his ass this morning?”

  


\---

 

“Werewolf?” Mary asked.

 

“Yeah,” Ben nodded. To avoid looking into her eyes he shifted his gaze towards the koi swimming gracefully in the little pond in the front of the house. He sat down on the bank of the pool.

 

“I'm so sorry,” she said.

 

“Don't be,” Ben wiped something away from under his eyepatch.

 

“Hey, hey,” Mary swooped in next to him, “don't cry, I don't wanna see no tears out of you,”

 

“It’s not tears, it's blood,” he said, showing Mary the red smear on his finger.

 

“Oh, oh god,”

 

“No, no,” he assured, “nothing serious, it's fine,” He began to anxiously tug on the laces of his boot. Mary wrapped her arms comfortingly around him.

 

“We’re gonna get through this,”

 

“I know,” he sighed.

 

“And we're gonna do it together,”

 

“I know,” he sighed, “Adam gave me the whole speech before,”

 

“He did?”

 

“Yeah, we were at lunch together today. He spoke to me then,”

 

“That's good, that's really good, what else did he say?”

 

“He said I should try speaking with Hank, he said Hank would probably sympathize and try to help out, but I absolutely do not want him to,”

 

“Why not Hank?”

 

“Cause once I ask Hank for help he's gonna come back to me in two days with one version of me from ten years ago and the other is gonna be me from a universe where I never knew you or like the nazis won World War Two. For the one of the smartest men alive he’s been making a lot of dumbass decisions,”

 

“Then you're gonna have to speak to Naomi then, she's the one who could help you the most,” Ben nodded. He stared down into the koi pond. There were about five koi swimming about.

 

“Looks a little more empty than usual,” he observed.

 

“It's cause we lost one,” Mary said as she too looked into the pond, “I had Adam on feeding duty when you were gone. He came out one morning and the poor guy was belly up,”

 

“So what did you do with it? They're a little too big to flush down the toilet,”

 

“Jubilee thought it would be funny if we gave it a funeral, so we did. He's out buried by the woods somewhere in a little shoebox coffin,”

 

“Cute,” he muttered. He opened up the top of a fake rock and took out the fish feed inside of it. Then he sprinkled some feed into the water for the koi. He chuckled as the five little fish all practically mauled each other for fish feed. Ben then stood up and went back into the house.

 

“Where are you going?” She asked.

 

“I'm going to find my boyfriend,” he responded. Mary hesitated for a second before calling out to him.

 

“I think Jyn knows,”

 

“What?” He asked, turning around to her.

 

“I dunno if she overheard me speaking about it to Adam or if she put two and two together that night like I did, either way I've heard her speaking about it with her friends. I don't think they believe her, but if she knows then..”

 

“Then what?”

 

“I dunno, it's just I felt like I had to tell you,”

 

“Shit,” he muttered, sticking his hands into his pockets. “Shit. What do I do?”

 

“My advice: tell her and her alone, it isn't like you're running to a random person and saying “hey I'm a werewolf.” If she suspects it; confirm it to her and keep it quiet. It would be infinitely better for you to have her on your side and then ensure her silence instead of her instead just telling the world that you just may or may not be a werewolf. She’s Jyn Erso. She knows how to keep a secret,”

 

“No,”

 

“Ben listen, I am telling you: if she keeps going on then there's a chance that she will say something to the wrong person and the wrong person will believe her. Again: if you want to continue your campaign of secrecy then it would be be better for you to just tell her and make her keep your secrets then have her toss conspiracy theories around and eventually it comes back and it bites you in the ass. Jyn is a very trustworthy person, if I were in your shoes then I would tell her,”

 

“But you're not the werewolf are you? And so I do not want to tell her,”

 

“Ok, ok fine. You do what you do I guess. But I’m warning you Ben. This’ll come back to bite you in the ass,” She thought back to her conversation with Adam before and realized the irony in her words.

 

“Oh will it?”

 

“I'm just saying. And Ben,”

 

“Yeah?”

 

“Did Adam tell you about the press thing?”

 

“Press thing?”

 

“Yeah,” Mary nodded, “press thing, he told me a few days ago. Didn't he tell you?”

 

“The fuck do you mean ‘press thing’?” Ben asked.

 

“Some PR guys called us up a while ago. The tabloids were going nuts saying that you were abused and that I was fucking your boyfriend and he tried to kill you and for some dumbass reason it spread like wildfire. Adam’s a Disney prince so they're obviously very protective of his image, so they're pressuring him, no, the three of us into doing some press conference in New York. All you apparently have to do is go up, say you're alright and then I follow and say that nothing happened between me and Adam, because they're worried about that for some reason too, and that's it. We just say ‘no more questions’ and then walk away like nothing ever happened,”

 

“And when would this be?”

 

“They wanted it to be as soon as you got out, but speak to Adam about it. They called him, not me. He just told me about it after,”

 

“And why would Adam not speak to me about this?”

 

“Go ask him,” She said. “I’m gonna take a nap,”

 

\--

 

Hank McCoy was not happy.

 

Hank McCoy was not happy and he was ready to let the world know it. When he entered the house, he angrily threw his shoes off first, and ripped his socks off next and undid the tie around his neck. He undid two of the top buttons on the top of his fancy white button-down shirt because he felt too stuffy in it and when he got to the couch he threw himself onto it and it made a loud “wumph” sound. The TV wasn't on. He needed to watch something. The remote was a few inches away, so he did as all blue furry beasts with prehensile feet would do, he used his feet to grab the remote and bring it towards him.

 

“Hank,” he heard someone say, “That is one of the laziest things I’ve ever seen you do,” Hank knew who that was. He said nothing.

 

“Oh come on, why are you giving me a cold shoulder all of a sudden? This morning we were friends,”

 

“Miss Erso,”  


“What did I say to you this morning?”

 

“Look-”

 

“Nuh-uh,” Jyn shook her head, “What did I say? I said that we were going to be friends now,”

 

“Miss-”

 

“Hank, what did I-,”

 

“Not _fucking_ now, Jyn!” He snarled.

 

“Alright,” she sighed. She then got up from the couch and walked away, “have it your way then, arsehole,”

 

Hank said nothing. He rested his hands on his face and sighed deeply. There was nothing good on TV anyways. He instead went to his room.

 

\---

 

“I didn't think someone like you smoked,” Ben said, looking at Naomi who was leaning on the balcony outside her room, “Mary told me that you boxed a lot, that shit’s gotta be taking a toll on your lungs?” He asked

 

“It is,” she said, exhaling smoke. She rolled up a sleeve on her shirt to show off a small flesh colored patch, “been tryin’ to wean myself off of it,”

 

“Well,” Ben said, “You mustn’t be doing a very good job at it,” He walked over next to Naomi on the balcony. “Although, I can’t judge,” he said as he pulled a small green carton and a lighter from one of the many pockets of his cargo pants. He placed a cigarette in his mouth and lit up.

 

“That shit’ll kill ya’,” Naomi told him after dumping some ashes into a mug she had placed onto the bannister.

 

“Good,” Ben said after he exhaled smoke from his nose like a dragon, “I'll be fucking done with this shit faster,”

 

“Don't joke like that Ben, after all you've been through-”

 

“After all I've been through I think I've fucking won the right to joke about this,” he gestured to the stitches on his face and his patched eye, “about all of this,” He took a quick drag on the cigarette, “You wanna see something,” he turned the left side of his face to Naomi, “look at my ear,” so Naomi examined it for a few seconds.

 

“I see nothing wrong,”

 

“Look closer,” so she did, and then,

 

“Holy shit,”

 

“Yeah,” Ben nodded. He didn't have an earlobe on that ear. “The bitch fucking tore it off when it was attacking me,”

 

“Holy shit,”

 

“Yeah,” Ben sighed, “but still, not like I was using it or anything,”

 

“Nope,” Naomi nodded in agreement. Ben turned his head away from Naomi so he could look out towards the distance. Naomi was still looking at him, looking at the stitches all over his face. Rather brainlessly she extended a finger to stroke them. Ben, as anyone would, acted adversely. He moved out of the way of Naomi’s finger.

 

“Don’t do that,” he stated very firmly. “That's weird,” he took another drag on the cigarette.

 

“Sorry, sorry,” she said. “Got carried away. How many of those do you have?”

 

“How many what?”

 

“Stitches,”

 

“Stitches? Oh man, my stitches. I don’t even know, honestly. I was unconscious for most of the procedures,”

 

“Damn,” Naomi said after taking a final drag on her cigarette. She extinguished it and placed the butt into a mug she had been dumping her ashes into.

 

“It sucks,” he sighed, “it really fucking sucks. But, I've been informed that chicks dig scars,”

 

“Well I think I can see one tiny problem there,”

 

“Yeah, chicks have never been interested in me, wonder why,” he joked. He would've chuckled but he had a cigarette in his mouth. It did elicit a chuckle from Naomi. She was going to say something, but a ringing from her phone distracted her.

 

“Shit,” Naomi muttered under her breath.  

 

“What's up?” Ben asked, after he quickly exhaled smoke.

 

“Work call. You should go,”

 

“Work call?”

 

“Yeah,” Naomi nodded, “I’m not here on vacation you know,”

 

“I thought you were,” Ben said, “that isn't that why you're here?”

 

“Mary didn't tell you?”

 

“What was she supposed to tell me?” Ben asked. Naomi looked down at her ringing phone and then back to Ben.

 

“Look, I need to take this,” she said as she walked him out of her room. “Go speak to Mary about it,” and then she shut the door on his face, leaving Ben standing in the hallway alone with a lit cigarette in his mouth.

\---

 

“There’s gotta be just something to do,”

 

“And there is, Kitty,” Jubilee said.

 

“Like what?” Kitty asked

 

“Well,” Jubilee began, “we have drivers licenses and a car we can borrow in the garage, why don't we just go somewhere?”

 

“Where is there to go?” Kitty asked.

 

“The mall?”

 

“Is it open?”

 

“It’s a monday, It’s gotta be open,” Jubilee said.

 

“Monday,” Kitty murmured, “thought it was Sunday,”

 

“Nope,” Jubilee said, “it’s Monday,”

 

Kitty took out her phone and put her headphones in. She then laid down on the couch.

 

“Guess we ain’t goin’ anywhere?” Jubilee asked, sitting next to her.

 

“Nope,”

 

\---

 

Tails was a good kit. Or at the very least he tried to be. He was a very odd person in this house. He was eight years old, that makes him the youngest here. He was the only animal of the house. His twin tails often prompted strange looks, and when he used them to hover to places he couldn’t reach the looks only intensified. There were two separate people here who had claws spring from their hands at their will, why was he so weird for using his tails to fly? Why do you think they called him Tails?

 

His name wasn’t really Tails though. Miles Prower was his full name. Ha ha ha. Miles Prower, Miles Per Hour, how funny. Miles Prower because his best friend is Sonic the Hedgehog.

 

He wasn’t even fast like Sonic was. He could follow, but he was never faster than he was. Second best he was. Second best to a hero.

 

But that was who he was. Tails, just Tails. Not Miles to them, Tails. The tiny little fox who could fly and talk and sing and dance and whatever you asked him to. The little genius.

 

He was hungry, that’s what he knew. So he did as all hungry people did, he went out to the kitchen for a snack. He wanted something simple, something small. A granola bar should do the trick. Granola was very good. When he walked into the kitchen he remembered one little detail. Granola bars were kept inside a cabinet far above his reach. This was not a problem. He jumped once and with a “whup-whup-whup”, his tails allowed him to reach the cabinet. He stood on top of the counter and reached up to achieve his prized granola.

 

“I’ve seen many things across the nine realms,” a voice behind him said. “That was the strangest of them,” he turned to greet the voice. That was Thor standing in front of him.

 

“Oh,” he said. Tails shuffled for a second, attempting to think of something to say.

 

“I mean no offense to you, of course,” Thor said, putting a hand on the fox’s head to pet him as if he were a dog.

 

“Ok,” Tails moved himself out of Thor’s hand. He wasn’t exactly in the mood for these sort of these things. He fidgeted for a few seconds before jumping off the counter. He used his tails to slow his fall.

 

“Can I ask how you do that?” Thor asked

 

“Do what?”

 

“Your tails,” Oh god. Another question about the tails. Ugh, if he had to hear another question about the tails then he’d just lose it.

 

“I was just born like this,” he told him. It was the truth after all.

 

“Huh,” Thor nodded. “Quite the superpower,”

 

_Superpower._

 

Now that wasn’t the word he had often heard to describe him and his tails. It was a condition, an ability, a tool. A superpower it never was. Superpower was usually reserved for men who could summon thunder from the skies or to someone who could sprout claws from their hands.

 

_Superpower._

 

When he was a younger kit, long before taking on an army and meeting Sonic he had fond memories of being bullied for his tails. He was a freak, a misfit, a mutant if you will. People reacted to strange things with fear and he was the strangest thing. He was never in a sense stereotypically bullied, He was never beaten up, never shaken down. He just wasn’t included in anything. Never really spoken to. People liked to joke at his expense.

 

But now, oh man now? As if his reputation with Sonic hadn’t cemented him now as the wiz kid of Green Hill, he was _superpowered!_ Suddenly he felt on par with Clark Kent or Diana Prince. This was his superpower! He was a damn superhero! That would show them! That would show the _world_ that this kid? He was a damn superhero. He was worth something. He was never gonna be second best again. He was a league of his own.

 

“Thank you,” Tails replied.

 

\---

 

Working retail became quite a humbling experience for the mutant formerly known as Rogue. She was very used to being vocal in her opinions, she had a sense of pride in that. This was absolutely the opposite of it. There wasn’t a freedom here. She really couldn’t talk. If she did, she had to say “thank you”. “This way”. “Over here”. That garbage. It was absolutely boring. She didn’t like it at all. She stood at a cash register for hours at an electronics store. At least it paid.

 

“Marie!” A woman called. “Lunch break, I’m taking over for you,”

 

“Thank you,” She said. She escaped the counter and ran off to the mall’s food court for something to eat. Something fast. Probably a burger.

 

This was a very strange time. For once in her life, she could settle into a routine. It went a little something like this.

 

Step 1: Wake Up

 

Step 2: Prepare for work

 

Step 3: Go to work

 

Step 4: Actually work

 

Step 5: break for Lunch

 

Step 6: eat and browse the Internet

 

Step 7: repeat step 4

 

Step 8: day is over. Go home.

 

Right now it was time for step 6. She sat in the food court, eating some French fries from a little container. She flicked through her phone, checking her twitter feed to see what was happening, what was current. It had gotten boring. Her feed was a mix of news and people she followed’s posts. Same shit. People yelling at this and that, nothing she hadn’t normally done. At least the Internet was her way to scream into the void, to let her voice be heard again. Because nobody cared for the mutants anymore. People like her were vanishing. Being a mutant was irrelevant. Mutants were a dying breed, in both her world and this. The old words of the Scarlet Witch echoed in her head, and seemed to boom through reality: “ _no more mutants_ ”

 

Why did she do this? She thought to herself. She was a fucking _X-man,_ she was a superhero goddamnit! Why was she here? Why was she in retail? She was famous, although that was used very lightly now. Nobody really recognized her anymore.

 

Perhaps she was trying to prove something to herself? That she was self serving? That she could perhaps have the life she wanted to have before the X-Men? But these were questions for another time, her lunch break was now over. She ate her food quickly and went back to finish her shift

 

\--

 

Ben silently ran the water in the bathroom sink and took a deep breath before washing his face. He removed his eyepatch and beret and cupped his hands so he could catch the water and bring it to his face. Alright. No day but today.

 

He put his eyepatch back on and the beret on after it. The tin from the hospital was there on the sink sitting closed. He took that too. He exited the bathroom and went to the kitchen. He needed something small to eat, or something to drink. There. In the fridge: a small bottle of water. That was small enough for him to quickly drink in one sip. He quickly took it and exited the kitchen as fast as he could. He speedwalked up into his room and shut the door behind him. Walking around he checked to see if anyone was inside with him. Adam liked to sometimes take daytime naps up in their room, today he wasn’t. That was good. This he had to do alone.

 

He sat on the floor and placed the metal tin down and opened it up. Inside was a fine orange powder and a small spoon. The scent of the powder floated all over the room, It was unmistakable. Fine cinnamon, pleasing to the nose. This wasn’t cinnamon though. Oh this was far from cinnamon.

 

“Only two doses a day,” was what his doctor told him. “One in the morning, the other to be taken at night. Both to be taken with either food and, or water,”

 

This was dangerous. This was untested. This had to work.

 

Ben had missed his morning dose, so he would take it a little late in the afternoon today. That was fine, just don’t do it again. Oh man. This was it. Ben took a deep breath and scooped the powder into the water bottle. This was scary. This was terrifying. When he would take a sip of that powder mixed with water, he didn’t know what would happen. But no, this was going to help him. This _had_ to help him.

 

 _“I will not fear”_ he thought to himself. A saying taught to him by a book.

 

 _“Fear is the mind killer. Fear brings total obliteration.”_ He picked up the bottle

 

 _“I will face my fear and I will permit it to pass over and through me,”_ He unscrewed the lid.

 

 _“And when it has gone past I will turn to see where the fear has gone and there will be nothing,”_ He inhaled sharply.

 

 _“Only I will remain,”_  He drank the water.

 

...Was this it? Was nothing happening? Was nothing supposed to happen? Well, he guessed so. He closed up his tin, placed it into his back pocket and stood up, but he got dizzy. No matter, it was probably just a headru-oh this wasn’t a headrush. Oh no, this wasn’t a headrush. “JESUS!” He yelled, “JESUS, MARY MOTHER OF……..FUCK!” In the span of about ten seconds, the dizziness became a headache, and then the headache became a migraine, and then the migraine became something else entirely. Ben fell onto the floor, writhing in pain. “CHRIST!” He yelled.

 

Something weird was happening, his eyes were closed, but he was seeing _something_ . He just didn’t know what. It was flashes, brief images and strange sounds and things that he had never said. Or were they what he would say in the future? He didn’t know. And now this was starting to terrify him. He could hear screams and yells of pain, yells of pleasure and screams of terror. He could see images, but only briefly. There was pain. People yelling. He saw a gun, and a hand quivering as it clenched the gun. He saw the faces of his friends, some were scared, some were crying. Adam was crying. Ben himself was crying. He felt cold rain on his skin. Then he was scared. Then he was drowning. Then he was running. His skin was gone. Replaced with fur as he ran. A great wolf howled in the distance as his lungs began to fill with water. A voice boomed in the distance; _“It’s quite the experience to live in fear, isn’t it?”_

 

He felt pain too, and it was searing. It burned all through his face and all down his body. He wanted to rip open his stitches and be free of this, to let his blood spill all over the carpet and be done. _Make it stop!_ He pleaded in his head. It would be of no use because obviously nobody could hear. _Make it stop!_ The pain was burning this entire body. _MAKE IT STOP!_

 

And then it did.

 

Whatever it was, it ended. Gone. Finished. Ben could finally open up his eyes, and took some shaky steps upwards. Taking shaky steps, he made his way into the bathroom. He ripped his eyepatch off and gazed into the mirror. He saw blood leaking from his left eye, and tears coming from the right.

 

“Holy shit,” he said to himself.

 

The spice must flow.

 

—

 

Adam napped on the couch in the living room, and he did it quite peacefully. God all he did today was sleep. Sleep sleep sleep. Now he worried he wouldn’t sleep at night, he’d just be awake all night. Hmm. Nah he knew he’d still be able to sleep. He was a big guy, he burnt through energy like mad. Plus it was the perfect lazy day. Why waste such a beautiful day doing things or getting work done (implying he had work to do at all) when you could simply sleep the day away? Who needs fresh air when the air conditioner exists?

 

He was in the middle of a rather enjoyable dream when he felt someone gently pick his head up by his horns and after sitting down, gently rested his head back to his lap. He knew who this was. “Hello Ben,” he grumbled, not even opening his eyes.

 

“Hello,” Ben said with a smile. He was trying to hide the fact that something was bothering him, but Adam wasn’t noticing him. His focus was on sleeping. Ben decided not to disturb him any further with his talk, so he said nothing. He instead lightly stroked the fur on Adam’s face. They sat there like this for a few minutes.

 

To Ben, this was a snowglobe moment. A moment so simple and so pure you could see it encased forever. Simple and pure like a snowglobe. He wanted to sit down and capture this forever. He could live inside this moment forever and never be sad. Never be angry. Just live for this moment. Live right now and just die happy. It was just what he needed right now. He felt Adam’s large paw come up and practically envelop the entire left side of his face. Adam was gently thumbing the stitches on Ben’s face. Neither said anything. All they did was smile at each other.

 

 **end of part**   **1**.

**Author's Note:**

> So, you may be wondering why this is a part 1. Well, the reason is simple. Well, reasons. 1: This first chapter is fucking M A S S I V E. It reached up to a good 79 pages on google docs, and that's not even finished! Which leads into part 2: It isn't finished! Now you're probably asking why publish an incomplete work? The reason for that is to simply just test and see if people enjoy it. If people enjoy, then the story continues. If they don't? Then this vanishes to the annuls of A03 and my google drive. So leave a Kudos if you enjoyed. Hell even better: Leave a comment! Say what you did and didn't like! 
> 
> And while you're here, enjoy a playlist created by me and my close friend (the inspiration for Mary Warren) as a sort of soundtrack to the story. Check it out! Listen while you read. There's a song for everybody. https://open.spotify.com/user/daveejacobs/playlist/38XDepcOdc0RAzpx3QRPRA?si=IGpkqTwyRp2tXSMCZ8_sYg
> 
> Enjoy part 1, Part 2 will hopefully come soon. I hope. If you like what you see, you can find me on twitter under @vulpptex. Check me out!
> 
> Enjoy!


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